"I"m thankful we were able to do it," said Oliver.
"If you"d known how I hated you and despised myself over that eight pounds you would hardly have been glad. Everything was hateful. I took the money down to Cripps and paid it him. He pretended at first that he wouldn"t take it; and then when he did, and I asked him to give me back my promissory note, he laughed at me. I nearly went mad, Greenfield, at the thought of not being clear after all. At length he did make believe to give in, and produced what I thought was the bill, and tore it up in my presence. I couldn"t see it, but he read it out aloud, and I had no doubt it was actually the thing. I was so grateful I actually felt happy. But then came the discovery of that miserable exam paper. I must have left it in my Juvenal last September, and forgotten all about it. I was certain the Doctor knew quite well I was the thief, but I denied it and tried feebly to put it on you. Then everybody cut me; but I hoped still all might blow over in time. But every day it became harder to bear; I should have had to confess at last, I believe. Then came Cripps"s final villainy. He had never destroyed my bill after all, but now calmly claimed the whole amount."
"The scoundrel!" exclaimed Oliver, indignantly.
"I had no receipts to show what I had paid, and of course was at his mercy. This last move really drove me half crazy. I daren"t tell any one about it. I was too desperate to think of anything but running away and hiding somewhere. I had no money. I came to you with a lie to try to borrow a pound, so that I might go somewhere by train. You couldn"t do it, and so I had to walk, and--and--oh! Greenfield, what shall I do?
what will become of me?"
"My dear fellow," said Oliver, laying his hand on the unhappy boy"s arm, "we"ll go back together, and I can promise you you"ll find nothing but kindness and forgiveness when you get back. If I wasn"t sure of that, I wouldn"t urge you to come. There! I wish you could have seen your poor father"s face last night."
Loman held out no longer; and, indeed, it was high time to think of moving, for the afternoon was closing in and rain was already beginning to fall.
Loman was in no condition for walking, nor, indeed, was Oliver, who had been on his feet since early morning. A farmer"s cart was with some difficulty found, which happened to be going a good part of the distance, and in this the two boys late that afternoon ensconced themselves. They talked little at first, and presently not at all.
Each had his own thoughts, and they were serious enough to occupy them for a much longer journey.
Night fell presently, soon after they had started, and with it the rain and wind came heavily. There was little enough protection for these two worn-out ones in an empty open cart, but what they could get from an old wrap and some boards they secured.
As the storm grew worse this poor shelter became quite useless, and the two boys suffered all the horrors of a bitter exposure.
Loman, who had got a cough already, was the first to show distress, and he soon became so cold and numbed that Oliver grew alarmed. They would be better walking than sitting still in that jolting cart a night like this.
So, much against their own inclination and the advice of the carman, who characterised the proceedings as "tomfoolery," they alighted, and attempted to take the short cut across the fields to Saint Dominic"s.
Short cut, indeed! It was indeed a sarcastic name for the road those two boys took that terrible night. Oliver could never recollect all that happened those few hours. He was conscious of the tremendous storm, of the hopeless losing of their way, and of Loman"s relapse into a state of half-unconsciousness, in the midst of which he constantly begged to be allowed to lie down and sleep.
To prevent this was Oliver"s princ.i.p.al occupation during that fearful time. More than once he was forced into a hand-to-hand struggle to keep his companion from his purpose. To let him lie down and sleep on such a night would be, he knew, to leave him to certain death. At any cost he must be kept moving. At last the storm fairly vanquished them. Even Oliver began to grow half-hearted in his determination. He took off his own coat and waistcoat and pat them on his comrade, who by this time was stupid with cold and exhaustion. A few minutes longer and both might have given themselves up, when suddenly there flickered a light before them. All Oliver could do was to shout. He had no power left to drag Loman farther, and leave him he would not. He shouted, and the reader knows who heard that shout, and what the answer was.
Such was Oliver"s story, and it needed little amplification. If it had, the only boy who could have added to it was in no position to do so.
For four weeks after that night Loman lay ill with rheumatic fever, so ill that more than once those who watched him despaired of his recovery.
But he did recover, and left Saint Dominic"s a convalescent, and, better still, truly penitent, looking away from self and his own poor efforts to Him, the World"s Great Burden Bearer, whose blood "cleanseth us from all sin."
His schoolfellows saw him no more; did not know, indeed, when he left them. Only one of them shook hands with him at the door of the old school as he went. That boy was Oliver Greenfield.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.
GOOD-BYE TO SAINT DOMINIC"S.
And now, reader, we are at the end of our story, and there only remain the usual "last words" before we say good-bye.
Saint Dominic"s flourishes still, and only last season beat the County by five wickets! The captain on that occasion was a fellow called Stephen Greenfield, who carried his bat for forty-eight in the first innings. He is a big fellow, is the captain, and has got a moustache.
Though he is the oldest boy at Saint Dominic"s, every one talks of him as "Greenfield junior." He is vastly popular, and fellows say there never was such a good Sixth at the school since the days of his brother, Greenfield senior, five years ago. The captain is an object of special awe among the youngsters of the Fourth Junior, who positively quake in their shoes whenever his manly form appears in the upper corridor.
These youngsters, by the way, are still the liveliest section of Saint Dominic"s. The names Guinea-pig and Tadpole have died out, and left behind them only the b.u.t.tercups and Daisies, who, however, are as fierce rivals and as inky scamps as even their predecessors were. There is a lout of a fellow in the Fourth Senior called Bramble, who is extremely "down" on these juveniles, always snubbing them, and, along with one Badger, a friend of his, plotting to get them into trouble. But somehow they are not much afraid of Bramble, whereat Bramble is particularly furious, and summons Padger to a "meeting" about once a week in his study, there to take counsel against these irreverent b.u.t.tercups and Daisies.
About the only other fellow the reader will recollect is Paul, now in the Sixth, a steady-going sort of fellow, who, by the way, has just won the Nightingale Scholarship, greatly to the delight of his particular friend the captain.
Last year the Fifth tried to revive an old inst.i.tution of their Form, in the shape of a newspaper ent.i.tled the _Dominican_, directed chiefly against the members of the Sixth. But somehow the undertaking did not come off. The _Dominican_ was a very mild affair for one thing, and there was nothing amusing about it for another thing, and there was a good deal offensive about it for another thing; and for another thing, the captain ordered it to be taken down off the wall on the first day of its appearance, and announced that if he had any more of this nonsense he would thrash one or two whose names he mentioned, and knock one or two others out of the first eleven.
The _Dominican_ has not appeared since.
The big cricket match against the County I spoke of just now was a famous event for more reasons than one. The chief reason, of course, was the glorious victory of the old school; but another reason, almost as notable, was the strange muster of old boys who turned up to witness the exploits of the "youngsters."
There was Tom Braddy, for instance, smoking a big cigar the size of a pencil-case, looking the picture of a sn.o.b. And with him a vacant-looking young man with a great crop of whiskers on his puffy cheeks. His name was Simon. The great idea of these two worthies seemed to be to do the grand before their posterity. They were convinced in their own minds that in this they were completely successful, but no one else saw it.
Boys took a good deal more interest in a lame gentleman present, who was cracking jokes with everybody, and hobbling about from one old crony to another in a manner that was perfectly frisky. Every one seemed to like Mr Pembury, and not a _few_ to be afraid of him. Perhaps that was because he was the editor of a well-known paper of the day, and every one likes to be on good terms with an editor.
Then there were a batch of fellows whose names we need hardly enumerate, who had run over from Oxford, or Cambridge, or London for the day, and who got into cl.u.s.ters between the innings and talked and laughed a great deal over old times, when "Bully did this," and "Rick did that," and so on. A nice lot of fellows they looked on the whole, and one or two, so people said, were doing well.
But among these _the_ lions of the day were two friends who strolled about arm-in-arm, and appeared far more at home in Saint Dominic"s even than the boys themselves. One of them was the big brother of the captain--a terrible fellow by all accounts. He rowed in the boat of his "Varsity the last year he was at Cambridge, and since then he has been called to the bar, and no one knows what else! People say Oliver Greenfield is a rising man; if so, we may hear of him again. At any rate in the eyes of the admiring youngsters of Saint Dominic"s he was a great man already.
So was his friend Wraysford, a fellow of his college, and a "coach" for industrious undergraduates. He does not look like a tutor, certainly, to judge by his jovial face and the capers he persisted in cutting with some of his old comrades of years ago. But he is one, and Saint Dominic"s Junior eyed him askance shyly, and thought him rather more learned and formidable a person than the old Doctor himself.
No one enjoyed themselves on that day more than these two, who prowled about and visited every nook and cranny of the old place--studies, pa.s.sages, cla.s.s-rooms, Fourth Junior and all.
The match is over, the jubilations of victory have subsided, and one by one the visitors depart. Among the last to leave are Oliver and Wraysford; they have stayed to dine with the Doctor, and when at last they do turn their backs on the old school it is getting late.
Stephen accompanies them down to the station. On the way they pa.s.s the well-known c.o.c.kchafer. The old board is still there, but a new name is upon it.
"Hullo! what"s become of Cripps?" asked Wraysford.
"Oh! he"s gone," said Stephen. "Didn"t you know?"
"No! When was that?"
"The very time you and Noll went up to Cambridge. The magistrates took away his licence for allowing gambling to go on at his house. He stuck on at the lock-house for some time, and then disappeared suddenly. They said he was wanted for some bit of swindling or other. Anyhow, he"s gone."
"And a very good riddance too," says Oliver.
"So it is," replies Stephen. "By the way, Noll, what"s the last news of Loman?"
"Oh, I meant to tell you. He"s coming home; I had a letter from him a week or two ago. He says the four or five years" farming and knocking about in Australia have pulled him together quite; you know how ill he was when he went out?"
"So he was," says Wraysford.
"He"s coming home to be near his father and mother. He"s been reading law, he says, out in the backwoods, and means to go into his father"s office."
"I"m glad he"s coming home," says Wraysford. "Poor fellow! I wonder when he"ll come to this old place again."
A silence follows, and Oliver says, "When he does, I tell you what: we must all make up a jolly party and come down together and help him through with it."
"Well, old man!" said Stephen, taking his brother"s arm, "if it hadn"t been for you, he--"
"Hullo, I say! there"s the train coming!" breaks out Oliver. "Look alive, you fellows, or we shall be late!"
THE END.