The Fifth Form at Saint Dominics.
by Talbot Baines Reed.
PREFACE.
_The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic"s_ is a story of public-school life, and was written for the _Boy"s Own Paper_, in the Fourth Volume of which it appeared. The numbers containing it are now either entirely out of print or difficult to obtain; and many and urgent have been the requests--from boys themselves, as well as from parents, head masters, and others--for its re-issue as a book.
Of the story itself little need be said. It deals in a bright and vigorous style with the kaleidoscopic, throbbing life of a great public school--that world in miniature which, in its daily opportunities and temptations, ambitions and failures, has so often afforded superabundant material for narratives powerful to enchain the attention and sway the emotions, whether to smiles or tears. This will take its place, amongst the best of them.
Though the story is one of school life, its interest is by no means limited to school or college walls. Boys of all sorts and conditions-- ay, and their parents too--will follow its fortunes with unflagging zest from the first page to the last; and it is difficult to conceive of any reader, be he young or old, who would not be the better for its vivid portraiture and bracing atmosphere. There is a breeziness about it calculated to stir the better life in the most sluggish; and without pretence or affectation it rings out its warnings, no less than its notes of cheer, clear and rousing as trumpet blasts.
"Do right, and thou hast nought to fear, Right hath a power that makes thee strong; The night is dark, but light is near, The grief is short, the joy is long."
Without the most distant approach to that fatal kind of sermonising which all but inevitably repels those whom it is meant to benefit, the story forcefully ill.u.s.trates how rapidly they may sink who once tamper, for seeming present advantage, with truth, and how surely, sooner or later, a n.o.ble character comes to vindication and honour; and in all such respects it is eminently true to life. These boys of Saint Dominic"s, even the best of them, are very human--neither angels nor monstrosities, but, for the most part, ardent, impulsive, out-and-out, work-a-day lads; with the faults and failings of inexperience and impetuosity, no doubt, but also with that moral grit and downright honesty of purpose that are still, we believe, the distinguishing mark of the true British public-school boy. Hence one is impelled to take from the outset a most genuine interest in them and their affairs, and to feel quite as though one had known many of them personally for years, and been distinctly the better, too, for that knowledge. Such boys stand at the antipodes alike of the unreal abstractions of an effeminate sentimentalism--the paragons who prate plat.i.tudes and die young--and of the morbid specimens of youthful infamy only too frequently paraded by the equally unreal sensationalism of to-day to meet the cravings of a vitiated taste.
_The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic"s_ is the kind of book we should place with confidence in the hands of our own boys when leaving the home shelter, whether for school or the sterner after-battle; and we cannot conceive of the parent who, having read it with care and pleasure, as we have done, and knowing at the same time anything of the stress and strain of daily life, would not, with grat.i.tude to the author, gladly do the same. With all their faults, Oliver Greenfield and Wraysford are splendid boys, of just the fibre that the Church needs, and the world cannot afford to do without; and yet their school career proves by no means a bed of roses. To drift with the current is proverbially easy; to seek to stem it manfully, and steer by the stars, may, and often does, lay one open to misapprehension or envy, and all the ills that follow in their train; yet--
"G.o.d is G.o.d, and right is right, And truth the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin."
Our heroes had their full share of trouble--what real hero has not?--but they come out of the ordeal purified and strengthened, with n.o.bler aspirations after duty, and tenderer thoughts of helpfulness towards those needing, if far from seeking, their succouring arm.
How all this comes about it is not for us to tell. Readers will find that out for themselves, and thank us for allowing them, unaided, to do so. The school cricket match, the grand football struggle, the ever-memorable prize-day--these are matters that no alien pen may touch.
Our prayer is that G.o.d may abundantly bless the book to the building up in our schools and families of strong Christian characters, who in the after days shall do valiant service for Christ and humanity.
G.A. Hutchison.
CHAPTER ONE.
THE NOTICE BOARD.
The four o"clock bell was sounding up the staircase and down the pa.s.sages of Saint Dominic"s school. It was a minute behind its time, and had old Roach, the school janitor, guessed at half the abuse privately aimed at his devoted head for this piece of negligence, he might have pulled the rope with a good deal more vivacity than he at present displayed.
At the signal there was a general shuffling of feet and uproar of voices--twelve doors swung open almost simultaneously, and next moment five hundred boys poured out, flooding the staircases and pa.s.sages, shouting, scuffling, and laughing, and throwing off by one easy effort the restraint and gravity of the last six hours.
The usual rush and scramble ensued. Some boys, taking off their coats and tucking up their sleeves as they ran, made headlong for the playground. Some, with books under their arms, scuttled off to their studies. The heroes of the Sixth stalked majestically to their quarters. The day boarders hurried away to catch the train at Maltby.
A few slunk sulkily to answer to their names in the detention-room, and others, with the air of men to whom time is no object and exertion no temptation, lounged about in the corridors with hands in pockets, regarding listlessly the general stampede of their fellows, and apparently not knowing exactly what to do with themselves.
Among these last happened to be Bullinger of the Fifth and his particular friend Ricketts, who, neither of them having any more tempting occupation, were comfortably leaning up against the door of the Fourth junior cla.s.s-room, thereby making prisoners of some twenty or thirty youngsters, whose infuriated yells and howls from within appeared to afford the two gentlemen a certain languid satisfaction.
"Open the door! do you hear?" shrieked one little treble voice.
"All right!" piped another. "I know who you are, you cads. See if I don"t tell Dr Senior!"
"Oh, please, I say, I shall lose my train!" whimpered a third.
"Wait till I get out; see if I don"t kick your shins!" howled a fourth.
It was no use. In vain these bantams stormed and raved, and entreated and blubbered. The handle would not turn, and the door would not yield.
Mr Bullinger and his friend vouchsafed no reply, either to their threats or their supplications, and how long the blockade might have lasted it is impossible to say, had not a fresh dissension called the beleaguerers away. A cl.u.s.ter of boys at a corner of the big corridor near the main entrance attracted their curiosity, and suggested a possibility of even more entertainment than the goading into fury of a parcel of little boys, so, taking advantage of a moment when the besieged had combined, shoulder to shoulder, to make one magnificent and desperate onslaught on to the obdurate door, they quietly "raised the siege," and quitting their hold, left the phalanx of small heroes to topple head over heels and one over another on to the stone floor of the pa.s.sage, while they sauntered off arm-in-arm to the scene of the new excitement.
The object which had attracted the knot of boys whom they now joined was the School Notice Board, on which, from time to time, were posted notices of general and particular interest to the school. On this particular afternoon (the first Friday of the Summer term) it was, as usual, crowded with announcements, each interesting in its way.
The first was in the handwriting of Dr Senior"s secretary, and ran as follows:--
"A Nightingale Scholarship, value 50 pounds a year for three years, will fall vacant at Michaelmas. Boys under seventeen are eligible.
Particulars and subject of examination can be had any evening next week in the secretary"s room."
"Fifty-pounds a year _for_ three years!" exclaimed a small boy, with a half whistle. "I wouldn"t mind getting that!"
"Well, why don"t you, you avaricious young Jew? You"re under seventeen, I suppose?" retorted the amiable Mr Bullinger, thereby raising a laugh at the expense of this little boy of eleven, who retired from the scene extinguished.
The next notice was in the cla.s.sical handwriting of the secretary of the Sixth Form Literary Society, and ran as follows:--
"This Society will meet on Tuesday. Subject for debate, "That the present age is degenerate," moved by A.E. Callander, opposed by T.
Winter. Boys from the Senior Fifth are invited as auditors."
This notice, even with the patronising postscript, would have pa.s.sed without comment, as Sixth Form notices usually did, had not some audacious hand ventured to alter a word and make the subject of debate, instead of "That the present age is degenerate," read "That the present Sixth is degenerate." Who the perpetrator of this outrage might be was a mystery, but the alteration was quite enough to render the notice very amusing to many of the readers, especially the Fifth Form boys, and very terrible to others, especially the small boys, who looked nervous and guilty, and did not dare by the slightest sign to join in the mirth of their irreverent seniors. Most of the a.s.sembly agreed that "there would be a row about it," with which a.s.surance they pa.s.sed on to the next notice.
"Wanted, a Smart f.a.g. No Tadpoles or Guinea-pigs need apply. Horace Wraysford, Fifth Form."
"Bravo, Horatius!" said Ricketts. "A lucky young cub it will be that he takes on," added he, turning to a group of the small boys near. "He"ll do your sums and look over your exercises for you like one o"clock.
Ugh! though, I suppose every man Jack of you is a Tadpole or a Pig?"
Tadpoles and Guinea-pigs, I should say, were the names given to two combinations or clubs in the clannish Junior School, the mysteries of which were known only to their members, but which were not regarded with favour by the older boys.
As no one answered this charge, Ricketts indulged in a few general threats, and a few not very complimentary comments on the clubs in question, and then returned to the notice board, which contained two more announcements.
"Cricket Notices. To-morrow will be a final big practice, when the elevens for the "A to M _versus_ N to Z" match on the 25th will be chosen. "Sixth _versus_ School" will be played on the 1st proxo. The School Eleven will be selected from among players in the two above matches."
"A private meeting of the Fifth will be held this afternoon at 4.30 to discuss an important matter."
"Hullo!" said Bullinger, looking up at the clock, "it"s half-past now!
Come along, Rick."
And the two demagogues disappeared arm-in-arm down the pa.s.sage, followed by the admiring glances of the juniors, who spent the next half-hour in wondering what could be the important matter under consideration at the private meeting of the Fifth. The universal conclusion was that it had reference to the suppression of the Tadpoles and Guinea-pigs--a proceeding the very suggestion of which made those small animals tremble with mingled rage and fear, and sent them off wriggling to their own quarters, there to deliberate on the means of defence necessary to protect themselves from the common enemy.
The meeting in the Fifth, however, was to consider a far more important subject than the rebellious clubs of the Junior School.
The reader will doubtless have inferred, from what has already been said, that the young gentlemen of the Fifth Form at Saint Dominic"s entertained, among other emotions, a sentiment something like jealousy of their seniors and superiors in the sixth. Perhaps Saint Dominic"s is not the only school in which such a feeling has existed; but, at any rate during the particular period to which I am referring, it was pretty strong there. Not that the two Forms were at war, or that there was any fear of actual hostilities. It was not so bad as all that. But the Fifth were too near the heroes of the top Form to consent to submit to their authority. They would be Sixth men themselves soon, and then of course they would expect the whole school to reverence them. But till that time they resented the idea of bowing before these future comrades; and not only that, they took every opportunity of a.s.serting their authority among the juniors, and claiming the allegiance for themselves they refused to render to others. And they succeeded in this very well, for they took pains to make themselves popular in the school, and to appear as the champions quite as much as the bullies of the small fry.
The consequence was that while Tadpoles and Guinea-pigs quaked and blushed in the presence of the majestic Sixth, they quaked and smirked in the presence of the Fifth, and took their thrashings meekly, in the hope of getting a Latin exercise looked over or a minor tyrant punished later on.
Just at the present time, too, the Fifth was made up of a set of fellows well able to maintain the peculiar traditions of their fellowship. They numbered one or two of the cleverest boys (for their age) in Saint Dominic"s; and, more important still in the estimation of many, they numbered not a few of the best cricketers, boxers, football-players, and runners in the school. With these advantages their popularity as a body was very great--and it is only due to them to say that they bore their honours magnanimously, and distributed their kicks and favours with the strictest impartiality.
Such was the company which a.s.sembled on this afternoon in their own cla.s.s-room, with closed doors, to deliberate on "private and important business." About twenty boys were present, and the reader must let me introduce a few of them, before his curiosity as to the occasion of their a.s.sembling themselves together can be satisfied.
That handsome, jovial-looking boy of sixteen who is sitting there astride of a chair, in the middle of the floor, biting the end of a quill pen, is the redoubtable Horace Wraysford, the gentleman, it will be remembered, who is in want of a f.a.g. Wraysford is one of the best "all-round men" in the Fifth, or indeed in the school. He is certain to be in the School Eleven against the County, certain to win the mile race and the "hurdles" at the Athletic Sports, and is not at all unlikely to carry off the Nightingale Scholarship next autumn, even though one of the Sixth is in for it too. Indeed, it is said he would be quite certain of this honour, were it not that his friend and rival Oliver Greenfield, who is standing there against the wall, with his head resting on a map of Greece, is also in for it. Greenfield does not strike one as nearly so brilliant a fellow as his friend. He is quieter and more lazy, and more solemn. Some say he has a temper, and others that he is selfish; and generally he is not the most popular boy in Saint Dominic"s. Wraysford, however, sticks to him through thick and thin, and declares that, so far from being ill-tempered and selfish, he is one of the best fellows in the school, and one of the cleverest. And Mr Wraysford is prepared to maintain his allegation at the point of the--knuckle! That hulking, ugly youth is Braddy, the bully, the terror of the Guinea-pigs, and the laughing-stock of his own cla.s.s-mates. The boy who is fastening a chalk duster on to the collar of Braddy"s coat is Tom Senior, the Doctor"s eldest son, who, one would have imagined, might have learned better manners. Last, not least (for we need not re-introduce Messrs. Ricketts or Bullinger, or go out of our way to present Simon, the donkey of the Form, to the reader), is Master Anthony Pembury, the boy now mounting up onto a chair with the aid of two friends. Anthony is lame, and one of the most dreaded boys in Saint Dominic"s. His father is editor of the _Great Britain_, and the son seems to have inherited his talent for saying sharp things. Woe betide the Dominican who raises Tony"s dander! He cannot box, he cannot pursue; but he can _talk_, and he can ridicule, as his victims all the school over know.