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The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's/Chapter IX

Loman, who had arrived at the same conclusion respecting Oliver’s bravery as the majority in the Fifth, did not allow his conscience to trouble him as to his share of the morning’s business. He never had liked Oliver, and lately especially he had come to dislike him. He was therefore glad to have made him smart; and now, since the blunder in the cricket match, he felt greatly inclined to repeat the blow, particularly as there did not seem much to fear if he did so.

He was quick, too, to see that Oliver had lost favour with his comrades, and had no hesitation in availing himself of every opportunity of widening the breach. He affected to be sorry for the poor fellow, and to feel that he had been too hard on him, and so on, in a manner which, while it offended the Fifth, as applied to one of their set, exasperated them all the more against Oliver. And so matters went on, getting more and more unsatisfactory.

Loman, however, had other things to think of than his rival’s cowardice, and foremost among these was his new fishing-rod—or rather, the rod which he coveted for his own. Until the day after the Alphabet Match he had not even had time to examine his treasure. Three pounds ten was an appalling figure to pay for a rod; “But then,” thought Loman, “if it’s really a good one, and worth half as much again, it would be a pity to miss such a bargain;” and everyone knew the Crippses, father and son, were authorities on all matters pertaining to the piscatorial art. Loman, too, was never badly off for pocket-money, and could easily raise the amount, he felt sure, when he represented the case at home. So he took the rod out of its canvas bag, and began to put it together.

Now, a boy’s study is hardly the place in which to flourish a fishing-rod, and Loman found that with the butt down in one bottom corner of the room, the top joint would have to be put on up in the opposite top corner. When this complicated operation was over, there was no room to move it from its position, still less to judge of its weight and spring, or attach the winch and line. Happy thought! the window! He would have any amount of scope there. So, taking it to pieces, and putting it together again in this new direction, he had the satisfaction of testing it at its full length. He was pleased with the rod, on the whole. He attached the line, with a fly at the end, in order to give it a thorough trial, and gave a scientific “cast” into an imaginary pool. It was a splendid rod, just right for him; how he wished he was up above Gusset Weir at that moment! Why, he could—

Here he attempted to draw up the rod. There was an ugly tug and a crack as he did so, and he found, to his disgust, that the hook, having nothing else to catch, had caught the ivy on the wall, and, what was worse, that the top joint of the rod had either snapped or cracked in its inability to bring this weighty catch to shore. It was a long time before Loman was able to disengage his line, and bring the rod in again at the window. The top joint was cracked. It looked all right as he held it, but when he tried to bend it it had lost its spring, and the crack showed only too plainly. Another misfortune still was in store. The reel in winding up suddenly stuck. Loman, fancying it had only caught temporarily, tried to force it, and in so doing the spring broke, and the handle turned uselessly round and round in his hand. This was a streak of bad luck, and no mistake! The rod was not his, and what was worse, it was (so Cripps said) a rod of extraordinary excellence and value. Loman had his doubts now about this. A first-rate top-piece would bend nearly double and then not break, and a reel that broke at the least pressure could hardly be of the best kind. Still, Cripps thought a lot of it, and Loman had undoubtedly himself alone to blame for the accidents which had occurred. As it was, the rod was now useless. He knew there was no place in Maltby where he could get it repaired, and it was hardly to be expected that Cripps would take it back.

What was to be done? Either he must pay £3 10 shillings for a rod of no value, or—

He slowly took the rod to pieces and put it back into the canvas bag. The top joint after all did not look amiss; and, yes, there was a little bit of elasticity in it. Perhaps the crack was only his fancy; or perhaps the crack was there when he got it. As to the reel, it looked as if it ought to work, and perhaps it would if he only knew the way. Ah! suppose he just sent the rod back to Cripps with a message that he found he did not require it? He would not say he had not used it, but if Cripps chose to imagine he received it back just as he sent it, well, what harm? Cripps would be sure to sell it to some one else, or else put it by (he had said he possessed a rod of his own). If he, Loman, had felt quite certain that he had damaged the rod himself, of course he would not think of such a thing; but he was not at all certain the thing was not defective to begin with. In any case it was an inferior rod—that he had no doubt about—and Cripps was not acting honestly by trying to pass it off on him as one of the best make. Yes, it would serve Cripps right, and be a lesson to him, and he was sure, yes, quite sure now, it had been damaged to begin with.

And so the boy argued with himself and coquetted with the tempter. Before the afternoon was over he felt (as he imagined) quite comfortable in his own mind over the affair. The rod was tied up again in its bag exactly as it had been before, and only wanted an opportunity to be returned to Mr. Cripps.

After that Loman settled down to an evening’s study. But things were against him again. Comfortable as his conscience was, that top joint would not let him alone. It seemed to get into his hand in place of the pen, and to point out the words in the lexicon in place of his finger. He tried not to mind it, but it annoyed him, and, what was worse, interfered with his work. So, shutting up his books, and imagining a change of air might be beneficial, he went off to Callonby’s study, there to gossip for an hour or two, and finally rid himself of his tormentor.

Stephen, meanwhile, had had Mr. Cripps on his mind too, for that afternoon his bat had come home. It was addressed to “Mr. Greenfield, Saint Dominic’s,” and of course taken to Oliver, who wondered much to receive a small size cricket-bat in a parcel. Master Paul, however, who was in attendance, was able to clear up the mystery.

“Oh! that’s your young brother’s, I expect; he said he had got a bat coming.”

“All I can say is, he must be more flush of cash than I am, to go in for a thing like this. Send him here, Paul.”

So Paul vanished, and presently Stephen put in an appearance, blushing, and anxious-looking.

“Is this yours?” asked the elder brother.

“Yes; did Mr. Cripps send it?”

“Mr. Cripps the lock-keeper?”

“No, his son. He said he would get it for me. I say, is that a good bat, Oliver?”

“Nothing out of the way. But I say, young ’un, how much have you given for it?”

“Not anything yet. Mr. Cripps said I could pay in June, when I get my next pocket-money.”

“What on earth has he to do with when you get your pocket-money?” demanded Oliver. “Who is this young Cripps? He’s a cad, isn’t he?”

“He seemed a very nice man,” said Stephen.

“Well, look here! the less you have to do with men like him the better. What is the price of the bat?”

“I don’t know; it’s one Mr. Cripps had himself when he was a boy. He says it’s a beauty! I say, it looks as good as new, Oliver.”

“You young muff!” said the elder brother; “I expect the fellow’s swindling you. Find out what he wants for it at once, and pay him; I’m not going to let you run into debt.”

“But I can’t; I’ve only two shillings left,” said Stephen, dejectedly.

“Why, whatever have you done with the five shillings you had last week?”

Stephen blushed, and then faltered, “I spent sixpence on stamps and sixpence on—on brandy-balls!”

“I thought so. And what did you do with the rest?”

“Oh! I—I—that is—I—gave them away.”

“Gave them away! Who to—to Bramble?”

“No,” said Stephen, laughing at the idea; “I gave them to a poor old man!”

“Where?—when? Upon my word, Stephen, you are a jackass—who to?”

And then Stephen confessed, and the elder brother rated him soundly for his folly, till the little fellow felt quite miserable and ashamed of himself. In the end, Oliver insisted on Stephen finding out at once what the price of the bat was, and promised he would lend his brother the money for it. In return for this, Stephen promised to make no more purchases of this kind without first consulting Oliver, and at this juncture Wraysford turned up, and Stephen beat a retreat with his bat over his shoulder.

The two friends had not been alone together since the fracas in the Fifth two days before, and both now appeared glad of an opportunity of talking over that and subsequent events.

“I suppose you know a lot of the fellows are very sore at you for not thrashing Loman?” said Wraysford.

“I guessed they would be. Are you riled, too, Wray?”

“Not I! I know what I should have done myself, but I suppose you know your own business best.”

“I was greatly tempted to let out,” said Oliver, “but the fact is—I know you’ll jeer, Wray—the fact is, I’ve been trying feebly to turn over a new leaf this term.”

Wraysford said “Oh!” and looked uncomfortable.

“And one of the things I wanted to keep out of was losing my temper, which you know is not a good one.”

“Not at all,” said Wraysford, meaning quite the opposite to what he said.

“Well, if you’ll believe me, I’ve lost my temper oftener in trying to keep this resolution than I ever remember to have done before. But on Friday it came over me just as I was going to thrash Loman. That’s why I didn’t.”

Wraysford looked greatly relieved when this confession was over. “You are a rum fellow, Noll,” said he, after a pause, “and of course it is all right; but the fellows don’t know your reason, and think you showed the white feather.”

“Let them think!” shouted Oliver, in a voice so loud and angry that Master Paul came to the door and asked what he wanted.

“What do I care what they think?” continued Oliver, forgetting all about his temper; “they can think what they like, but they had better let me alone. I’d like to knock all their heads together! so I would!”

“Steady, old man!” said Wraysford, good-humouredly; “I quite agree with you. But I say, Noll, I think it’s a pity you don’t put yourself right with them and the school generally, somehow. Everybody heard Loman call you a fool yesterday, and you know our fellows are so clannish that they think, for the credit of the Fifth, something ought to be done.”

“Let them send Braddy to thrash him, then; I don’t intend to fight to please them.”

“Oh! that’s all right. And if they all knew what you’ve told me they would understand; but as it is, they don’t.”

“They’ll find out some day, most likely,” growled Oliver; “I’m not going to bother any more about it. I say, Wray, do you know anything of Cripps’s son?”

“Yes. Don’t you know he keeps a dirty public-house in Maltby?—a regular cad, they say. The fishing-fellows have seen him up at the Weir now and then.”

“I don’t know how he came across him, but my young brother has just been buying a bat from him, and I don’t much fancy it.”

“No, the youngster won’t get any good with that fellow; you had better tell him,” said Wraysford.

“So I have, and he won’t do it again.”

Shortly after this Pembury hobbled in on his way to bed.

“You’re a pretty fellow,” said he to Oliver; “not one of our fellows cares a rush about the Dominican since you made yourself into the latest sensation.”

“Oh, don’t let us have that up again,” implored Oliver.

“All very well, but what is to become of the Dominican?”

“Oh, have a special extra number about me. Call me a coward, and a fool, and a Tadpole, any mortal thing you like, only shut up about the affair now!”

Pembury looked concerned.

“Allow me to feel your pulse,” said he to Oliver.

“Feel away,” said Oliver, glad of any diversion.

“Hum! As I feared—feverish. Oliver, my boy, you are not well. Wandering a bit in your mind, too; get to bed. Be better soon. Able to talk like an ordinary rational animal then, and not like an animated tom-cat. Good-bye!”

And so saying he departed, leaving the friends too much amused to be angry at his rudeness.

The two friends did a steady evening’s work after this, and the thought of the Nightingale Scholarship drove away for the time all less pleasant recollections.

They slept, after it all, far more soundly than Loman, whose dreams were disturbed by that everlasting top joint all the night long.

The reader will no doubt have already decided in his own mind whether Oliver Greenfield did rightly or wrongly in putting his hands into his pockets instead of using them to knock down Loman. It certainly did not seem to have done him much good at the time. He had lost the esteem of his comrades, he had lost the very temper he had been trying to keep—twenty times since the event—and no one gave him credit for anything but “the better part of valour” in the whole affair.

And yet that one effort of self-restraint was not altogether an unmanly act. At least, so thought Wraysford that night, as he lay meditating upon his friend’s troubles, and found himself liking him none the less for this latest singular piece of eccentricity.


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The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's/Chapter X

Stephen, before he had been a fortnight in the school, found himself very much at home in Saint Dominic’s. He was not one of those exuberant, irrepressible boys who take their class-fellows by storm, and rise to the top of the tree almost as soon as they touch the bottom. Stephen, as the reader knows, was not a very clever boy, or a very dashing boy, and yet he somehow managed to get his footing among his comrades in the Fourth Junior, and particularly among his fellow guinea-pigs. He had fought Master Bramble six times in three days during his second week, and was engaged to fight him again every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday during the term. He had also taken the chair at one indignation meeting against the monitors, and spoken in favour of a resolution at another. He had distributed brandy-balls in a most handsome manner to his particular adherents, and he had been the means of carrying away no less than two blankets from the next dormitory. This was pretty good for a fortnight. Add to this that he had remained steadily at the bottom of his class during the entire period, and that once he had received an “impot” (or imposition) from Mr. Rastle, and it will easily be understood that he soon gained favour among his fellows.

This last cause of celebrity, however, was one which did not please Stephen. He had come to Saint Dominic’s with a great quantity of good resolutions, the chief of which was that he would work hard and keep out of mischief, and it grieved him much to find that in neither aim was he succeeding.

The first evening or two he had worked very diligently at preparation. He had taken pains with his fractions, and looked out every word in his Caesar. He had got Oliver to look over his French, and Loman had volunteered to correct the spelling of his “theme”; and yet he stuck at the bottom of the class. Other boys went up and down. Some openly boasted that they had had their lessons done for them, and others that they had not done them at all. A merry time they had of it; but Stephen, down at the bottom, was in dismal dumps. He could not get up, and he could not get down, and all his honest hard work went for nothing.

And so, not content to give that system a longer trial, he grew more lax in his work. He niched the answers to his sums out of the “Key,” and copied his Caesar out of the “crib.” It was much easier, and the result was the same. He did not get up, and he could not get down.

Oliver catechised him now and then as to his progress, and received vague answers in reply, and Loman never remembered a fag that pestered him less with lessons. Stephen was, in fact, settling down into the slough of idleness, and would have become an accomplished dunce in time, had not Mr. Rastle come to the rescue. That gentleman caught the new boy in an idle mood, wandering aimlessly down the passage one afternoon.

“Ah, Greenfield, is that you? Nothing to do, eh? Come and have tea with me, will you, in my room?”

Stephen, who had bounded as if shot on hearing the master’s unexpected voice behind him, turned round and blushed very red, and said “Thank you,” and then looked like a criminal just summoned to the gallows.

“That’s right, come along;” and the master took the lad by the arm and marched him off to his room.

Here the sight of muffins and red-currant jam, in addition to the ordinary attractions of a tea-table, somewhat revived Stephen’s drooping spirits.

“Make yourself comfortable, my boy, while the tea is brewing,” said Mr. Rastle, cheerily. “Have you been playing any cricket since you came?”

“Only a little, sir,” said Stephen.

“Well, if you only turn out as good a bat as your brother—how well he played in the Alphabet Match!”

Stephen was reviving fast now, and embarked on a lively chat about his favourite sport, by the end of which the tea was brewed, and he and Mr. Rastle sitting “cheek by jowl” at the table, with the muffins and jam between them.

Presently Mr. Rastle steered the talk round to Stephen’s home, a topic even more delightful than cricket. The boy launched out into a full account of the old house and his mother, till the tears very nearly stood in his eyes and the muffins very nearly stuck in his throat. Mr. Rastle listened to it all with a sympathetic smile, throwing in questions now and then which it charmed the boy to answer.

“And how do you like Saint Dominic’s?” presently inquired the master. “I suppose you’ve made plenty of friends by this time?”

“Oh yes, sir. It’s not as slow as it was at first.”

“That’s right. You’ll soon get to feel at home. And how do you think you are getting on in class?”

Stephen was astonished at this question. If any one knew how he was getting on in class Mr. Rastle did, and, alas! Mr. Rastle must know well enough that Stephen was getting on badly.

“Not very well, I’m afraid, sir, thank you,” replied the boy, not feeling exactly comfortable.

“Not? That’s a pity. Are the lessons too hard for you?” kindly inquired Mr. Rastle.

“No, I don’t think so—that is—no, they’re not, sir.”

“Ah, your Latin exercise I thought was very fair in parts to-day.”

Stephen stared at his master, and the master looked very pleasantly at Stephen.

“I copied it off Raddleston,” said the boy, in a trembling voice, and mentally resigning himself to his fate.

“Ah!” said Mr. Rastle, laughing; “it’s a funny thing, now, Greenfield, I knew that myself. No two boys could possibly have translated ‘nobody’ into ‘nullus corpus’ without making common cause!”

Stephen was desperately perplexed. He had expected a regular row on the head of his confession, and here was his master cracking jokes about the affair!

“I’m very sorry I did it. I won’t do it again,” said he.

“That’s right, my boy; Raddleston isn’t infallible. Much better do it yourself. I venture to say, now, you can tell me what the Latin for ‘nobody’ is without a dictionary.”

“Nemo,” promptly replied Stephen.

“Of course! and therefore if you had done the exercise yourself you wouldn’t have made that horrid—that fearful mistake!”

Stephen said, “Yes, sir,” and meditated.

“Come now,” said Mr. Rastle, cheerily, “I’m not going to scold you. But if you take my advice you will try and do the next exercise by yourself. Of course you can’t expect to be perfect all at once, but if you always copy off Raddleston, do you see, you’ll never get on at all.”

“I’ll try, sir,” said Stephen, meaning what he said.

“I know you will, my boy. It’s not easy work to begin with, but it’s easier far in the long run. Try, and if you have difficulties, as you are sure to have, come to me. I’m always here in the evenings, and we’ll hammer it out between us. School will not be without its temptations, and you will find it hard always to do your duty. Yet you have, I hope, learnt the power of prayer; and surely the Saviour is able not only to forgive us our sins, but also to keep us from falling. At school, my boy, as elsewhere, it is a safe rule, whenever one is in doubt, to avoid everything, no matter who may be the tempter, of which one cannot fearlessly speak to one’s father or mother, and above all to our Heavenly Father. Don’t be afraid of Him—He will always be ready to help you and to guide you with His Holy Spirit. Have another cup of tea?”

This little talk, much as he missed at the time its deeper meaning, saved Stephen from becoming a dunce. He still blundered and boggled over his lessons, and still kept pretty near to the bottom form in his class, but he felt that his master had an interest in him, and that acted like magic to his soul. He declined Master Raddleston’s professional assistance for the future, and did the best he could by himself. He now and then, though hesitatingly, availed himself of Mr. Rastle’s offer, and took his difficulties to head-quarters; and he always, when he did so, found the master ready and glad to help, and not only that, but to explain as he went along, and clear the way of future obstacles of the same sort.

And so things looked up with Stephen. He wrote jubilant letters home; he experienced all the joys of an easy conscience, and he felt that he had a friend at court.

But as long as he was a member of the honourable fraternity of Guinea-pigs, Stephen Greenfield was not likely to be dull at Saint Dominic’s.

The politics of the lower school were rather intricate. The Guinea-pigs were not exactly the enemies of the Tadpoles, but the rivals. They were always jangling among themselves, it was true; and when Stephen, for the second time in one week, had hit Bramble in the eye, there was such jubilation among the Guinea-pigs that any one might have supposed the two clans were at daggers drawn. But it was not so—at least, not always—for though they fell out among themselves, they united their forces against the common enemy—the monitors!

Monitors, in the opinion of these young republicans, were an invention of the Evil One, invented for the sole purpose of interfering with them. But for the monitors they could carry out their long-cherished scheme of a pitched battle on the big staircase, for asserting their right to go down the left side, when they chose, and up on the right. As it was, the monitors insisted that they should go up on the left and come down on the right. It was intolerable tyranny! And but for the monitors their comb-and-paper musical society might give daily recitals in the top corridor and so delight all Saint Dominic’s. What right had the monitors to forbid the performance and confiscate the combs? Was it to be endured? And but for the monitors, once more, they might perfect themselves in the art of pea-shooting. Was such a thing ever heard of, as that fellows should be compelled to shoot peas at the wall in the privacy of their own studies, instead of at one another in the passages? It was a shame—it was a scandal—it was a crime!

On burning questions such as these, Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles sunk all petty differences, and thought and felt as one man; and not the least ardent among them was Stephen.

“Come on, quick! Greenfield junior,” squeaked the voice of Bramble, one afternoon, as he and Stephen met on the staircase.

Stephen had fought Bramble yesterday at four o’clock, and was to fight him again to-morrow at half-past twelve, but at the call of common danger he forgot the feud and tore up the stairs, two steps at a time, beside his chronic enemy.

“What’s the row?” he gasped, as they flew along.

“Row? Why, what do you think? Young Bellerby has been doctored for tying a string across the passage!”

“Had up before the Doctor? My eye, Bramble!”

“It is your eye indeed! One of the monitors tripped over it, and got in a rage, and there’s Bellerby now catching it in the Black Hole. Come on to the meeting; quick!”

The two rushed on, joined by one and another of their fellows who had heard the terrible news. The party rushed pellmell into the Fourth Junior class-room, where were already assembled a score or more youths, shouting, and stamping, and howling like madmen. At the sight of Bramble, the acknowledged leader of all malcontents, they quieted down for a moment to hear what he had to say.

“Here’s a go!” classically began that hero.

At this the clamour, swelled twofold by the new additions, rose louder than ever. It was a go!

“I wish it had been me.” again yelled Bramble: “I’d have let them know.”

Once more the shouts rose high and loud in approval of this noble sentiment.

“I’d have kicked their legs!” once more howled Bramble, as soon as he could make himself heard.

“So would we; kicked their legs!”

“They ought to be hanged!” screamed Bramble.

“I’ll not fag any more for Wren!” bellowed Bramble.

“I’ll not fag any more for Greenfield senior!” thundered Paul.

“I’ll not fag any more for Loman!” shrieked Stephen.

“Why don’t some of you put poison in their teas?” cried one.

“Or blow them up when they’re in bed with gunpowder?”

“Or flay them alive?”

“Or boil them in tar?”

“Or throw them into the lions’ den?”

“Those who say we won’t stand it any longer,” shouted Bramble, jumping up on to a form, “hold up your hands!”

A perfect forest of inky hands arose, and a shout with them that almost shook the ceiling.

At that moment the door opened, and Wren appeared. The effect was magical; every one became suddenly quiet, and looked another way.

“The next time there’s a noise like that,” said the monitor, “the whole class will be detained one hour,” and, so saying, departed.

After that the indignation meeting was kept up in whispers. Now and then the feelings of the assembly broke out into words, but the noise was instantly checked.

“If young Bellerby has been flogged,” said Bramble, in a most sepulchral undertone, “I’ve a good mind to fight every one of them!”

“Yes, every one of them,” whispered the multitude.

“They’re all as bad as each other!” gasped Bramble.

“We’ll let them know,” muttered the audience.

“I’ll tell you what I’ve a good mind to—to—ur—ur—I’ve a good mind to—ugh!”

Again the door opened. This time it was Callonby.

“Where’s young Raddleston?—What are you young beggars up to?—is Raddleston here?”

“Yes,” mildly answered the voice of Master Raddleston, who a moment ago had nearly broken a blood-vessel in his endeavours to scream in a whisper.

“Come here, then.”

The fag meekly obeyed.

“Oh, and Greenfield junior,” said Callonby, as he was turning to depart, “Loman wants to know when you are going to get his tea; you’re to go at once, he says.”

Stephen obeyed, and was very humble in explaining to Loman that he had forgotten (which was the case) the time. The meeting in the Fourth class-room lasted most of the afternoon; but as oratory in whispers is tedious, and constant repetition of the same sentiments, however patriotic, is monotonous, it nagged considerably in spirit towards the end, and degenerated into one of the usual wrangles between Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles, in the midst of which Master Bramble left the chair, and went off in the meekest manner possible to get Wren to help him with his sums for next day.

Stephen meanwhile was engaged in doing a little piece of business for Loman, of which more must be said in a following chapter.

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Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/110

 track to the settlement of Port Macquarie, which extends for some distance along the bank of the river, traversing mangrove thickets and brushy forest land. Having passed at the back of Dr. Carlisle's vineyards, I arrived at Port Macquarie about one o'clock. After taking some refreshment there, and given my horse a feed of corn, I continued my journey. The road I took led me along some forest land and marshes to the beautiful residence of Major Innes, which is situated on a gentle eminence, that slopes down gradually to a large fresh- water lake, beyond which the house commands an extensive view of the ocean and the coast. A few miles further on, I met the line of marked trees to the Manning, near Walter's station. The country now consisted for some distance of thickly wooded, undulating forest land, tolerably grassy, and intersected by chains of water-holes and small watercourses, until I reached a sandy patch of ground, thickly clothed with grass, and timbered exclusively by Banksia, or honeysuckle, which is rather a rare tree in the Port Macquarie district, except in the immediate vicinity of the coast. Having again entered on a tract of the ordinary grassy forest land, heavily wooded by black-butt, iron-bark, stringybark, grey gum, mahogany, and forest oak, and furrowed by innumerable brushy hollows, containing water-courses, I rode on over this kind of country until dusk, when I stopped for the night at a gravelly creek just outside of the brush.


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The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's/Chapter XI

The afternoon of the famous “indignation meeting” in the Fourth Junior was the afternoon of the week which Mr. Cripps the younger, putting aside for a season the anxieties and responsibilities of his “public” duties in Maltby, usually devoted to the pursuit of the “gentle craft,” at his worthy father’s cottage by Gusset Weir. Loman, who was aware of this circumstance, and on whose spirit that restless top joint had continued to prey ever since the evening of the misadventure a week ago, determined to avail himself of the opportunity of returning the unlucky fishing-rod into the hands from which he had received it.

He therefore instructed Stephen to take it up to the lock-house with a note to the effect that having changed his mind in the matter since speaking to Cripps, he found he should not require the rod, and therefore returned it, with many thanks for Mr. Cripps’s trouble.

Stephen, little suspecting the questionable nature of his errand, undertook the commission and duly delivered both rod and letter into the hands of Mr. Cripps, who greatly astonished him by swearing very violently at the contents of the letter. “Well,” said he, when he had exhausted his vocabulary (not a small one) of expletives—“well, of all the grinning jackanapeses, this is the coolest go! Do you take me for a fool?”

Stephen, to whom this question appeared to be directly applied, disclaimed any idea of the kind, and added—

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you, my young master? All right! Tell Mr. Loman I’ll wait upon him one fine day, see if I don’t! Here’s me, given up a whole blessed day to serve him, and a pot of money out of my pocket, and here he goes! not a penny for my pains! Chucks the thing back on my ’ands as cool as a coocumber, all because he’s changed his mind. I’ll let him have a bit of my mind, tell him, Mr. Gentleman Schoolboy, see if I don’t. I ain’t a-going to be robbed, no! not by all the blessed monkeys that ever wrote on slates! I’ll wait upon him, see if I don’t!”

Stephen, to whom the whole of this oration, which was garnished with words that we can hardly set down in print, or degrade ourselves by suggesting, was about as intelligible as if it had been Hebrew, thought it better to make no reply, and sorrowed inwardly to find that such a nice man as Mr. Cripps should possess so short a temper. But the landlord of the Cockchafer soon recovered from his temporary annoyance, and even proceeded to apologise to Stephen for the warmth of his language.

“You’ll excuse me, young gentleman,” said he, “but I’m a plain-spoken man, and I was—there, I won’t deny it—I was a bit put out about this here rod first go off. You’ll excuse me—of course I don’t mean no offence to you or Mister Loman neither, who’s one of the nicest young gentlemen I ever met. Of course if you’d a’ paid seventy bob out of your own pocket it would give you a turn; leastways, if you was a struggling, honest working man, like me.”

“That’s it,” snivelled old Mr. Cripps, who had entered during this last speech; “that’s it, Benny, my boy. Honest Partisans, that’s what we is, who knows what it are to be in want of a shillin’ to buy a clo’ or two for the childer.”

What particular little “childer” Mr. Cripps senior and his son were specially interested in no one knew, for neither of them was blessed with any. However, it was one of old Mr. Cripps’s heart-moving phrases, and no one was rude enough to ask questions.

Stephen did not, on the present occasion, feel moved to respond to the old man’s lament, and Cripps junior, with more adroitness than filial affection, hustled the old gentleman out of the door.

“Never mind him,” said he to Stephen. “He’s a silly old man, and always pretends he’s starvin’. If you believe me, he’s a thousand pounds stowed away somewheres. I on’y wish,” added he, with a sigh, “he’d give me a taste of it, for it’s ’ard, up-’ill work makin’ ends meet, particular when a man’s deceived by parties. No matter. I’ll pull through; you see!”

Stephen once more did not feel called upon to pursue this line of conversation, and therefore changed the subject.

“Oh, Mr. Cripps, how much is that bat?”

“Bat! Bless me if I hadn’t nearly forgot all about it. Ain’t it a beauty, now?”

“Yes, pretty well,” said Stephen, whose friends had one and all abused the bat, and who was himself a little disappointed in his expectations.

“Pretty well! I like that. You must be a funny cricketer, young gentleman, to call that bat only pretty well. I suppose you want me to take that back, too?” and here Mr. Cripps looked very fierce.

“Oh, no,” said Stephen, hurriedly. “I only want to know what I am to pay for it.”

“Oh, come now, we needn’t mind about that. That’ll keep, you know. As if I wanted the money. Ha, ha!”

Even a green boy like Stephen could not fail to wonder why, if Mr. Cripps was as hard up as he had just described himself, he should now be so anxious to represent himself as not in want of money.

“Please, I want to know the price.”

“As if I was a-going to name prices to a young gentleman like you! Please yourself about it. I shall not be disappointed if you gives me only eighteen-pence, and if you think twelve bob is handsome, well let it be. I can struggle on somehow.”

This was uncomfortable for Stephen, who, too green, fortunately, to comprehend the drift of Mr. Cripps’s gentle hints, again asked that he would name a price.

This time Mr. Cripps answered more precisely.

“Well, that there bat is worth a guinea, if you want to know, but I’ll say a sov. for cash down.”

Stephen whistled a long-drawn whistle of dismay.

“A sovereign! I can’t pay all that! I thought it would be about seven shillings!”

“Did you? You may think what you like, but that’s my price, and you are lucky to get it at that.”

“I shall have to send it back. I can’t afford so much,” said Stephen, despondingly.

“Not if I know it! I’ll have none of your second-hand bats, if I know it. Come, young gentleman, I may be a poor man, but I’m not a fool, and you’ll find it out if I’ve any of your nonsense. Do you suppose I’ve nothing to do but wait on jackanapeses like you and your mates? No error! There you are. That’ll do, and if you don’t like it—well, the governor shall know about it!”

Stephen was dreadfully uncomfortable. Though, to his knowledge, he had done nothing wrong, he felt terribly guilty at the bare notion of the Doctor being informed of his transactions with Mr. Cripps, besides greatly in awe of the vague threats held out by that gentleman. He did not venture on further argument, but, bidding a hasty farewell, returned as fast as he could to Saint Dominic’s, wondering whatever Oliver would say, and sorely repenting the day when first he was tempted to think of the unlucky bat.

He made a clean breast of it to his brother that evening, who, of course, called him an ass, and everything else complimentary, and was deservedly angry. However, Stephen had reason to consider himself lucky to possess an elder brother at the school who had a little more shrewdness than himself. Oliver was determined the debt should be paid at once, without even waiting to write home, and by borrowing ten shillings from Wraysford, and adding to it the residue of his own pocket-money, the sovereign was raised and dispatched that very night to Mr. Cripps; after which Oliver commanded his brother to sit down and write a full confession of his folly home, and ask for the money, promising never to make such a fool of himself again. This task the small boy, with much shame and trembling at heart, accomplished; and in due time an answer came from his mother which not only relieved his mind but paid off his debts to Oliver and Wraysford, and once for all closed the business of the treble-cane splice bat.

It would have been well for Loman if he could have got out of his difficulties as easily and as satisfactorily.

Ever since he had gathered from Stephen Mr. Cripps’s wrath on receiving the returned rod, he had been haunted by a dread lest the landlord of the Cockchafer should march up to Saint Dominic’s, and possibly make an exposure of the unhappy business before the Doctor and the whole school. He therefore, after long hesitation and misgiving, determined himself to call at the Cockchafer, and try in some way to settle matters. One thing reassured him. If Cripps had discovered the crack or the fracture in the rod, he would have heard of it long before now; and if he had not, then the longer the time the less chance was there of the damage being laid at his door. So he let three weeks elapse, and then went to Maltby. The Cockchafer was a small, unpretentious tavern, frequented chiefly by carriers and tradesmen, and, I regret to say, not wholly unknown to some of the boys of Saint Dominic’s, who were foolish enough to persuade themselves that skittles, and billiards, and beer were luxuries worth the risk incurred by breaking one of the rules of the school. No boy was permitted to enter any place of refreshment except a confectioner’s in Maltby under the penalty of a severe punishment, which might, in a bad case, mean expulsion. Loman, therefore, a monitor and a Sixth Form boy, had to take more than ordinary precautions to reach the Cockchafer unobserved, which he succeeded in doing, and to his satisfaction—as well as to his trepidation—found Mr. Cripps the younger at home.

“Ho, ho! my young shaver,” was that worthy’s greeting, “here you are at last.”

This was not encouraging to begin with. It sounded very much as if Mr. Cripps had been looking forward to this visit. However, Loman put as bold a face as he could on it, and replied—

“Hullo, Cripps, how are you? It’s a long time since I saw you; jolly day, isn’t it?”

“Jolly!” replied Mr. Cripps, looking very gloomy, and drawing a glass of beer for the young gentleman before he ordered it. Loman did not like it at all. There was something about Cripps’s manner that made him feel very uncomfortable.

“Oh, Cripps,” he presently began, in as off-hand a manner as he could assume under the depressing circumstances—“Oh, Cripps, about that rod, by the way. I hope you didn’t mind my sending it back. The fact is,” (and here followed a lie which till that moment had not been in the speaker’s mind to tell)—“the fact is, I find I’m to get a present of a rod this summer at home, or else of course I would have kept it.”

Mr. Cripps said nothing, but began polishing up a pewter pot with a napkin.

“I hope you got it back all right,” continued Loman, who felt as if he must say something. “They are such fragile things, you know. I thought I’d just leave it in the bag and not touch it, but send it straight back, for fear it should be damaged.”

There was a queer smile about Mr. Cripps’s mouth as he asked, “Then you didn’t have a look at it even?”

“Well, no, I thought I would—I thought I wouldn’t run any risk.”

Loman was amazed at himself. He had suddenly made up his mind to tell one lie, but here they were following one after another, as if he had told nothing but lies all his life! Alas, there was no drawing back either!

“The fact is,” he began again, speaking for the sake of speaking, and not even knowing what he was going to say—“the fact is—”

Here the street door opened, and there entered hurriedly a boy whom Loman, to his confusion and consternation, recognised as Simon of the Fifth, the author of the “Love-Ballad.” What could the monitor say for himself to explain his presence in this prohibited house?

“Hullo, Loman, I say, is that you?” remarked Simon.

“Oh, Simon, how are you?” faltered the wretched Loman; “I’ve just popped in to speak to Cripps about a fishing-rod. You’d better not come in; you might get into trouble.”

“Oh, never mind. You won’t tell of me, and I won’t tell of you. Glass of the usual, please, Cripps. I say, Loman, was that the fishing-rod you were switching about out of your window that afternoon three weeks ago?”

Loman turned red and white by turns, and wished the earth would swallow him! And to think of this fellow, the biggest donkey in Saint Dominic’s, blurting out the very thing which of all things he had striven to keep concealed!

Mr. Cripps’s mouth worked up into a still more ugly smile.

“I was below in the garden, you know, and could not make out what you were up to. You nearly had my eye out with that hook. I say, what a smash you gave it when it caught in the ivy. Was it broken right off, or only cracked, eh? Cripps will mend it for you, won’t you, Cripps?”

Neither Mr. Cripps nor Loman spoke a word. The latter saw that concealment was no longer possible; and bitterly he rued the day when first he heard the name of Cripps.

That worthy, seeing the game to have come beautifully into his own hands, was not slow to take advantage of it. He beckoned Loman into the inner parlour, whither the boy tremblingly followed, leaving Simon to finish his glass of “the usual” undisturbed.

I need not repeat the painful conversation that ensued between the sharper and the wretched boy. It was no use for the latter to deny or explain. He was at the mercy of the man, and poor mercy it was. Cripps, with many oaths and threats, explained to Loman that he could, if he chose, have him up before a magistrate for fraud, and that he would do so for a very little. Loman might choose for himself between a complete exposure, involving his disgrace for life or paying the price of the rod down and £20 besides, and he might consider himself lucky more was not demanded.

The boy, driven to desperation between terror and shame, implored mercy, and protested with tears in his eyes that he would do anything, if only Cripps did not expose him.

“You know what it is, then,” replied Cripps.

“But how am I to get the £20? I daren’t ask for it at home, and there’s no one here will lend it me. Oh, Cripps, what shall I do?” and the boy actually caught Mr. Cripps’s hand in his own as he put the question.

“Well, look here,” said Mr. Cripps, unbending a little, “that £20 I must have, there’s no mistake about it; but I don’t want to be too hard on you, and I can put you up to raising the wind.”

“Oh, can you?” gasped Loman, eager to clutch at the faintest straw of hope. “I’ll do anything.”

“Very good; then it’s just this: I’ve just got a straight tip about the Derby that I know for certain no one else has got—that is, that Sir Patrick won’t win, favourite and all as he is. Now there’s a friend of mine I can introduce you to, who’s just wanting to put a twenty on the horse, if he can find any one to take it. It wouldn’t do for me to make the wager, or he’d smell a rat; but if you put your money against the horse, you’re bound to win, and all safe. What do you say?”

“I don’t know anything about betting,” groaned Loman. “Are you quite sure I’d win?”

“Certain. If you lose I’ll only ask £10 of you, there! that’s as good as giving you £10 myself on the horse, eh?”

“Well,” said Loman, “I suppose I must. Where is he?”

“Wait here a minute, and I’ll bring him round.”

Loman waited, racked by a sense of ignominy and terror. Yet this seemed his only hope. Could he but get this £20 and pay off Cripps he would be happy. Oh, how he repented listening to that first temptation to deceive!

In due time Mr. Cripps returned with his friend, who was very civil on hearing Loman’s desire to bet against Sir Patrick.

“Make it a £50 note while you are about it,” said he.

“No, £20 is all I want to go for,” replied Loman.

“Twenty then, all serene, sir,” said the gentleman, booking the bet. “What’ll you take to drink?”

“Nothing, thank you,” said Loman, hurriedly rising to leave.

“Good-day, sir,” said Cripps, holding out his hand.

Loman looked at the hand and then at Mr. Cripps’s face. There was the same ugly leer about the latter, into which a spark of anger was infused as the boy still held back from the proffered hand.

With an inward groan Loman gave the hand a spiritless grasp, and then hurried back miserable and conscience-stricken to Saint Dominic’s.


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 Being without a companion, I unsaddled my horse, and tethered him on some young grass; then collecting some wood, I made a large fire. After making a solitary meal on some biscuits and a flask of wine, which I carried in my saddle bags, I laid down to sleep. Being very lightly clothed in a blouse and summer trousers, I awoke shivering with cold after a short sleep, as the fire had burnt itself out, for want of fresh fuel. I therefore got up, and groping about in the dark in search of some more wood, I soon made a roaring blaze again. My next doze was interrupted rather suddenly; for it seemed that as my second fire diminished, I had insensibly crept nearer to it in my sleep, until the straggling ends of my neckerchief became ignited and blazed into my face.

April 20th.—Having breakfasted and watered my horse, I put on his saddle, and continued my journey. I now crossed a succession of short heavily wooded ranges, covered with fern and wiry grass, and separated by brushy hollows, containing gravelly water-courses. On crossing the range bounding the basin of the river Hastings, I at length entered a deeper brush of a more alluvial character, and encountered a large stream which flows into Camden Haven inlet. The brush of this creek was diversified by an abundance of bangolo palms, fern-trees, and large flooded gum-trees. After crossing it I entered on another tract of country of similar features to that on the north side of Camden creek, the low


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 ranges being of good soil, and tolerably grassy, heavily wooded by large timber, with an underwood of Xanthorrheæ, tree-ferns, and a dwarf kind of Coripha. I then ascended a ridge of some elevation, and obtained an extensive view, To the right was the Broken-bago range, which divides the basin of the Manning river from that of the Hastings, and which was covered all over with the densest forest: on the highest conical summit of this range, a tall pinnacle of naked rock shot up perpendicularly above the trees, like a church-steeple. Looking eastward I discerned the verdant headlands at the entrance of Camden Haven inlet, with a long line of white surf at their bases, and more to the south, the three lofty hills, which stand comparatively isolated, near the coast, called "The Three Brothers," and which form such prominent landmarks when viewed from the sea. I still encountered for some distance further the same unvarying thickly wooded grassy ranges, and gravelly creeks in brushy hollows, at one of which I met with two natives who were getting some honey from the branch of a tree. They belonged to one of the Manning river tribes, and told me that the tribe was "close up bulga," (near the mountain), pointing to one of the Three Brothers. Having borrowed their fire-stick to light my pipe, and given them a piece of tobacco, I went a little farther on, and alighted a short time, whilst my horse fed upon some good young grass. On resuming my journey I passed along the foot of


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The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's/Chapter XII

The circumstances which had attended the publication of the first number of the Dominican had been such as to throw a damper over the future success of that valuable paper. It was most uncomfortably connected in the minds of the Fifth with the cowardice of Oliver Greenfield, and with the stigma which his conduct had cast upon the whole Form, and they one and all experienced a great diminution of interest in its future.

The Fifth were far more intent on vindicating their reputation with the Sixth—and, indeed, with the rest of the school. They sought every opportunity of bringing on a collision with the monitors. One or two of their number went so far as to pick quarrels with members of the rival class, in hopes of a fight. But in this they were not successful. The Sixth chose to look upon this display of feeling among their juniors as a temporary aberration of mind, and were by no means to be tempted into hostilities. They asserted their authority wherever they could enforce it, and sacrificed it whenever it seemed more discreet to do so. Only one thing evoked a temporary display of vexation from them, and that was when Ricketts and Braddy appeared one day, arm-in-arm, in the passages with tall hats on their heads. Now, tall hats on week-days were the exclusive privilege of the Sixth at Saint Dominic’s, and, worn by them during school hours, served as the badge of monitorship. This action on the part of the Fifth, therefore, was as good as a usurpation of monitorial rights, and that the Sixth were not disposed to stand. However, Raleigh, the captain, when appealed to, pooh-poohed the matter. “Let them be,” said he; “what do you want to make a row about it for? If the boys do mistake them for monitors, so much the less row in the passages.”

Raleigh was always a man of peace—though it was rumoured he could, if he chose, thrash any two Dominicans going—and the monitors were much disgusted to find that he did not authorise them to interfere with the Fifth in the matter. But the Fifth were interfered with in another quarter and in a way which caused them to drop their chimney-pots completely. One afternoon the entire Fourth Junior appeared in the corridors in their Sunday tiles! In their Sunday tiles they slid down the banisters; in their Sunday tiles they played leapfrog; in their Sunday tiles they executed a monster tug-of-war in the bottom corridor! Stephen and Bramble fought their usual battle in top hats, and Master Paul insisted on wearing the same decoration while washing up Oliver’s tea-things. It was a splendid hit, and for once in a way Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles scored one, for the Fifth appeared next day in their ordinary “boilers,” and the dignity of the monitors was vindicated.

But the blood was up between Fifth and Sixth, and each Form looked forward to the match, Sixth versus School, with redoubled interest.

“Were not these boys fools?” some one asks.

To be sure they were, sir. But what of that? they were none the less boys, and most of them fine young fellows, too, with all their nonsense.

However, as has been said, all this came out of the circumstances which attended the bringing out of the first number of the Dominican, and there seemed but a poor look-out for Number 2, which was now nearly due, in consequence.

“What on earth am I to do?” asked Pembury of Tom Senior one day; “I’ve not got a single contribution yet. There’s you making out you’re too busy, and Rick the same. It’s all humbug, I know! What are you busy at I’d like to know? I never saw you busy yet.”

“Upon my word, old man,” said Tom, “I’m awfully sorry, but I’ve got a tremendous lot to do. I’m going to try for the French prize; I am, really.”

“And you’ll get it, too; rather! Wasn’t it you who translated ‘I know the way to write’ into ‘Je non le chemin a writer,’ eh? Oh, stick to French by all means, Tom; it’s in your line! But you might just as well write for Number 2.”

“I really can’t this time,” said Tom.

Ricketts had an excuse very similar. Bullinger had hurt his foot, he said, and could not possibly write; and Braddy had begun to study fossils, he said, and was bound to devote all his spare time to them. To all of whom Master Pembury gave a piece of his mind.

“Wray, old man,” said he, that evening, “you and Noll and I shall have to do the whole thing between us, that’s all about it.”

“Awfully sorry!” said Wraysford; “you’ll have to let me off this time. I’m working like nails for the Nightingale.”

“Bother the Nightingale, I say! What is it to the Dominican? Come, I say, old man, that won’t do! you aren’t going to leave me in the lurch like all the rest?”

But Wraysford was; he would gladly have helped if he could, but he really must not this time; perhaps he would for the next.

Oliver was as bad; he declared the things he had written before—even with Pembury’s assistance—had taken him such ages to do, that he wasn’t going in for the next number. He was very sorry to disappoint, and all that; but if Tony was in for a scholarship next Michaelmas he would understand the reason. Why not let the thing drop this month?

This, however, by no means met Tony’s views. A pretty figure he would cut if it were to be said he couldn’t keep up a paper for two numbers running! No! his mind was made up. Number 2 should come out, even if he wrote every word of it himself! And with that determination he hobbled off to his study. Here he met Simon waiting for him.

“Oh,” said the poet; “I only brought this, if you’ll put it in. I think it’s not bad. I could make it longer if you like. I find poetry comes so easily, you know!”

Tony glanced over the paper and grinned. “Thanks, awfully! This will do capitally; it would spoil it to make it any longer. You’re a brick, Simon! I wish I could write poetry.”

“Oh, never mind. I could do some more bits about other things, you know, if you like.”

Pembury said he didn’t think he should require any more “bits,” but was awfully obliged by this one, which was first-rate, a recommendation which sent Simon away happy to his study, there immediately to compose the opening stanza of his famous epic, “The Sole’s Allegery—a sacred Poem.”

With one contribution in hand, Tony locked his door and sat down to write. There was something out of the common about Pembury. With the body of a cripple he had the heart of a lion, and difficulties only made it more dauntless. Any one else would have thought twice, indeed, before undertaking the task he was now setting himself to do, and ninety-nine out of every hundred would have abandoned it before it was half done. But Tony was indomitable. Every night that week he locked his study-door, and threats and kicks and entreaties would not open it even to his dearest friends. And slowly the huge white sheet before him showed the signs of his diligence. The great long columns, one after another, filled up; paragraph followed paragraph, and article article. He coolly continued the “History of Saint Dominic’s” begun last month by Bullinger, and the “Reports of the Sixth Form Debates” commenced by Tom Senior. And the “Diary of the Sixth Form Mouse” went on just as if Wraysford had never abandoned it; and the poem on the Guinea-pigs, promised in Number 1, by the author of “To a Tadpole,” duly appeared also. Besides this, there were the continuations of Tony’s own articles, and his “Personal Notes,” and “Squeaks from Tadpole-opolis,” and advertisements just as usual; until, in due time, the last column was filled up, the sheet triumphantly fixed in its frame, and as triumphantly hung up on its own particular nails on the wall outside the Fifth Form door.

It was a feat to be proud of, and Tony was justly and pardonably proud. It was at least a gratification next morning to see not only that the school generally took unabated interest in the Dominican but that he had fairly astonished his own class-fellows. Their admiration of the editor was unbounded and undisguised. Their consciences had all, more or less, reproached them for backing out of their responsibilities in the way they had; and now it quite touched them to see how, notwithstanding, Anthony had by his own labour made up for their defect, and sustained the reputation of the Fifth before all the school.

The crush outside the door was greater than ever this time, and Master Paul, who again acted as policeman, was obliged to summon Stephen to his assistance in watching to see that no damage came to the precious document.

The account of the Alphabet Match was very graphic, and written quite in the usual absurd “sporting style,” greatly to the amusement of most of those who had taken part in it. Here is a specimen:

“At 4:30, sharp, the leather was taken into custody by ‘Gamey’ Raikes, at the wash-house end, who tried what his artful ‘yorkers’ could do in the way of dissolving partnership. But Teddy Loman kept his willow straight up, and said ‘Not at home’ to every poser, leaving Noll to do all the smacking. This pretty business might have gone on till to-morrow week had the men’s upper stories been as ‘O.K.’ as their timbers, but they messed about over a pretty snick of Noll’s, and, after popping the question three times, Teddy got home just in time to see his two bails tumble out of their groove. Teddy didn’t like this, and bowled his partner a wide compliment, which Noll, like a sensible man, didn’t walk out to, and Teddy was astonished to find his party could get on without him”; and so on. This version of the incident was by no means pleasant to Loman, but to every one else it was highly diverting, and it actually made one or two of the Fifth think that Oliver, after all, had not done such a very discreditable thing in taking that angry word in silence. If only he had shown more spirit about the blow, they could have forgiven the rest. Then followed more from the “Sixth Form Mouse:—”

“The Sixth held a Cabinet Council to-day to discuss who should go out for nuts. The choice fell on Callonby. I wonder why the Sixth are so fond of nuts. Why, monkeys eat nuts. Perhaps that is the reason. What a popular writer Mr. Bohn is with the Sixth! they even read him at lesson time! I was quite sorry when the Doctor had to bone Wren’s Bohn. I wonder, by the way, why that bird found it so hard to translate the simplest sentence without his Bohn! The Doctor really shouldn’t—I hope he will restore to Wren his backbone by giving him back his Bohn. Hum! I heard someone smiling. I’ll go.”

The Sixth, a good many of them, were imprudent enough to look very guilty at the reading of this extract, a circumstance which appeared to afford keenest delight to the Fifth. But as Simon’s poem followed, they had other food for thought at the moment. The poem was entitled—

“A Revverie. “I. “I walked me in the garden, all in the garden fair, And mused upon my hindmost sole [1] all in the open air. When lo! I heard above my head a sound all like a wisk, [2] I stepped me aside thereat out of the way so brisk. [1] Possibly “inmost soul.” [2] Possibly “whisk.” “II. “I looked me up, and there behold! and lo! a window broad, And out thereof I did dizzern a gallant fishing-rod, All sporting in the breaze untill the hook in ivy caught, And then the little lad he tried to pull it harder than he ought. “III. “It broke, alas! and so messeems fades life’s perplecksing dreems, And vanish like that fishing-rod all in the dark messeems. I wonder if my perplecksing dreems will vanish like the rod in the dark, And I shall rise and rise and rise and rise all like a lark. “IV. “Oh wood I was a lark, a lark all lofty in the sky, I do not know what I should do to quench my blazing eye. I’d look me down on Dominic’s, and think of the days when I was young, Or would I was an infant meek all sucking of my thumb.”

Again Simon, who had watched with intense interest the reception of his poem, was perplexed to notice the amusement it had caused. Even Pembury had mistaken its “inmost soul,” for he had placed it in the column devoted to “Facetia.” Nor could Simon understand why, for the next week, every one he met had his thumb in his mouth. It was very queer—one of life’s mysteries—and he had thoughts of embodying the fact in his “Sole’s Allegery,” which was now rapidly approaching completion.

After this bubbling up of pure verse there followed a few remarks about Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles, which had the effect of highly incensing those young gentlemen. The paragraph was entitled—

“Market Intelligence.

“Half a dozen mixed Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles were offered for sale by auction on the centre landing yesterday. There was only a small attendance. The auctioneer said he couldn’t honestly recommend the lot, but they must be got rid of at any cost. He had scrubbed their faces and combed their hair for the occasion, but couldn’t guarantee that state of things to last. But they might turn out to be of use as substitutes in case worms should become scarce, and, any way, by boiling down their fingers and collars, many gallons of valuable ink could be obtained. The first bid was a farthing, which seemed to be far beyond the expectation of the salesman, who at once knocked the lot down. The sale was such a success that it is proposed to knock down several more lots in a like manner.”

The rage of the Fourth Junior on reading this paragraph was something awful to witness. Bramble, feeling he must kick somebody on the legs, kicked Stephen, who, forgetting that he was on police duty, seized Bramble by the hair of his head and rushed off with him to the “meeting,” closely followed by Paul and the whole swarm. That meeting lasted from three to five. What awful threats were uttered, and what awful vows taken, no one knew. At five o’clock Stephen’s fight with Bramble came off as usual, and all that evening Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles did nothing but make paper darts. It was certain a crisis had come in their history. The “dogs of war” were let loose! They would be revenged on somebody! So they at once began to be revenged on one another, till it should be possible to unite their forces against the common foe.

But the remainder of the crowd stayed on to read one more extract from the Dominican. Under the title of “Reviews of Books,” Anthony had reviewed in style the last number of the Sixth Form Magazine as follows:—

“This book appears to be the praiseworthy attempt of some ambitious little boys to enter the field of letters. We are always pleased to encourage juvenile talent, but we would suggest that our young friends might have done better had they kept to their picture-books a little longer before launching out into literature on their own account. In the words of the poet we might say— “‘Babies, wait a little longer, Till the little wings are stronger, Then you’ll fly away.’” “Nevertheless, we would refer to one or two of these interesting attempts. Take, for example, the essay on the ‘Character of Julius Caesar,’ by one who signs himself Raleigh. This is very well written. Pains have been taken about the formation of the letters, and some of the capitals are specially worthy of praise. For one so young, we rarely saw the capital D so well done. Dr. Smith, were he alive, would be pleased to see his remarks on Caesar so well and accurately copied out. Master Wren gives us some verse—a translation out of Horace. We wonder if Mr. Wren is any relation to the late Jenny Wren who married Mr. Cock Robin. We should imagine from these verses that Mr. Wren must be well acquainted with Robbin’. Take one more, Master Loman’s ‘A Funny Story.’ We are sorry to find Master Loman tells stories. Boys shouldn’t tell stories; it’s not right. But Master Loman unfortunately does tell stories, and this is one. He calls it ‘A Funny Story.’ That is a story to begin with, for it is not funny. We don’t know what Master Loman thinks funny; perhaps he calls being run out at cricket funny, or hitting another boy in the mouth when he’s looking another way. In any case, we can’t make out why he calls this story funny. The only funny thing about it is its title, and his spelling ‘attach’ ‘attarch.’ The last is really funny. It shows how partial Mr. Loman is to tea. If this funny story is the result of his partiality to tea, we are afraid it was very weak stuff.”

Loman, who had already been made dreadfully uncomfortable by Simon’s poem, made no secret of his rage over this number of the Dominican. He was one of those vain fellows who cannot see a jest where it is levelled at themselves. The rest of the Sixth had the sense, whatever they felt, to laugh at Anthony’s hard hits. But not so Loman; he lost his temper completely. He ordered the Dominican to be taken down; he threatened to report the whole Fifth to the Doctor. He would not allow the junior boys to stand and read it. In short, he made a regular ass of himself.

Undoubtedly Anthony had put a great deal of venom into his pen. Still, by taking all the poison and none of the humour to himself Loman made a great mistake, and displayed a most unfortunate amount of weakness.

He shut himself up in his study in a fume; he boxed Stephen’s ears for nothing at all, and would see no one for the rest of the evening. He knew well he could not have given his enemies a greater crow over him than such conduct, and yet he could not command his vanity to act otherwise.

But that evening, just before tea-time, something happened which gave Loman more to think about than the Dominican. A letter marked “Immediate” came to him by the post. It was from Cripps, to say that, after all, Sir Patrick had won the Derby!


text:
The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's/Chapter XIII

Cripps’s letter was as follows:

“Hon. Sir,—This comes hoping you are well. You may like to know Sir Patrick won. The tip was all out. Hon. Sir,—My friend would like his ten pounds sharp, as he’s a poor man. Please call in on Saturday afternoon. Your very humble servant, Ben Cripps.”

This letter was startling enough to drive fifty Dominicans out of Loman’s head, and for a long time he could hardly realise how bad the news it contained was.

He had reckoned to a dead certainty on winning the bet which Cripps had advised him to make with his friend. Not that Loman knew anything about racing matters, but Cripps had been so confident, and it seemed so safe to bet against this one particular horse, that the idea of events turning out otherwise had never once entered his head.

He went to the door and shouted for Stephen, who presently appeared with a paper dart in his hand.

“Greenfield,” said Loman, “cut down at once to Maltby and bring me a newspaper.”

Stephen stared.

“I’ve got my lessons to do,” he said.

“Leave them here, I’ll do them,” replied Loman; “look sharp.”

Still Stephen hesitated.

“We aren’t allowed out after seven without leave,” he faltered, longing to get back to the war preparations in the Fourth Junior.

“I know that, and I give you leave—there!” said Loman, with all the monitorial dignity he could assume.

This quite disarmed Stephen. Of course a monitor could do no wrong, and it was no use objecting on that score.

Still he was fain to find some other excuse.

“I say, will it do in the morning?” he began.

Loman’s only reply was a book shied at his fag’s head—quite explicit enough for all practical purposes. So Stephen hauled down his colours and prepared to start.

“Look sharp back,” said Loman, “and don’t let any one see you going out. Look here, you can get yourself some brandy-balls with this.”

Stephen was not philosopher enough to argue with himself why, if he had leave to go out, he ought to avoid being seen going out. He pocketed Loman’s extra penny complacently, and giving one last longing look in the direction of the Fourth Junior, slipped quietly out of the school and made the best of his way down to Maltby.

It was not easy at that time of day to get a paper. Stephen tried half a dozen stationers’ shops, but they were all sold out. They were evidently more sought after than brandy-balls, of which he had no difficulty in securing a pennyworth at an early stage of his pilgrimage. The man in the sweet-shop told him his only chance of getting a paper was at the railway station.

So to the station he strolled, with a brandy-ball in each cheek. Alas! the stall was closed for the day.

Stephen did not like to be beaten, but there was nothing for it now but to give up this “paper-chase,” and return to Loman with the report of his ill-success.

As he trotted back up High Street, looking about everywhere but in the direction in which he was going (as is the habit of small boys) and wondering in his heart whether his funds could possibly stand the strain of another pennyworth of brandy-balls, he suddenly found himself in sharp collision with a man who expressed himself on the subject of clumsy boys generally in no very measured terms.

Stephen looked up and saw Mr. Cripps the younger standing before him.

“Why!” exclaimed that worthy, giving over his irascible expletives, and adopting an air of unfeigned pleasure, “why, if it ain’t young Master Greenhorn. Ha, ha! How do, my young bantam? Pretty bobbish, eh?”

Stephen did not know exactly what was meant by “bobbish,” but replied that he was quite well, and sorry he had trodden on Mr. Cripps’s toes.

“Never mind,” said Mr. Cripps, magnanimously, “you’re a light weight. And so you’re taking a dander down town, are you? looking for lollipops, eh?”

Stephen blushed very red at this. However had Mr. Cripps guessed about the brandy-balls?

“I came to get a paper for Loman,” he said, “but they’re all sold out.”

“No, are they? I wonder what Mr. Loman wants with a paper, now?”

“He said it was very important, and I was to be sure to get one of to-day’s,” said Stephen. “Do you know where I can get one?”

“Of course. Come along with me; I’ve got one at home you can have. And so he said it was very important, did he? That’s queer. There’s nothing in to-day’s paper at all. Only something about a low horse-race. He don’t want it for that, I guess; eh?”

“Oh, no, I shouldn’t think,” said Stephen, trotting along beside his amiable acquaintance.

Mr. Cripps was certainly a very friendly man, and as he conducted Stephen to the Cockchafer, Stephen felt quite a liking for him, and couldn’t understand why Oliver and Wraysford both ran him down.

True, Mr. Cripps did use some words which didn’t seem exactly proper, but that Stephen put down to the habit of men in that part. The man seemed to take such an interest in boys generally, and in Stephen in particular, and was so interested and amused to hear all about the Guinea-pigs, and the Dominican, and the Sixth versus School, that Stephen felt quite drawn out to him. And then he told Stephen such a lot of funny stories, and treated him with such evident consideration, that the small boy felt quite flattered and delighted.

So they reached the Cockchafer. Here Stephen, whose former visits had all been to the lock-house, pulled up.

“I say,” said he, “is this a public-house?”

“Getting on that way,” said Mr. Cripps.

“We aren’t allowed to go in public-houses,” said Stephen, “it’s one of the rules.”

“Ah, quite right too; not a good thing for boys at all. We’ll go in by the private door into my house,” said Mr. Cripps.

Stephen was not quite comfortable at this evasion, but followed Mr. Cripps by the side door into his bar parlour.

“You won’t forget the paper,” he said, “please. I’ve got to be back in school directly.”

“I’ll have a look for it. Now, I guess you like ginger-beer, don’t you?”

Stephen was particularly partial to ginger-beer, as it happened, and said so.

“That’s the style,” said Mr. Cripps, producing a battle. “Walk into that while I go and get the paper.”

Stephen did walk into it with great relish, and began to think Mr. Cripps quite a gentleman. He was certain, even if that bat had been a poor one, it was quite worth the money paid for it, and Oliver was unjust in calling Cripps hard names.

The landlord very soon returned with the paper.

“Here you are, young governor. Now don’t hurry away. It’s lonely here all by myself, and I like a young gentleman like you to talk to. I knew a nice little boy once, just your age, that used to come and see me regular once a week and play bagatelle with me. He was a good player at it too!”

“Could he get clear-board twice running with two balls?” asked Stephen, half jealous of the fame of this unknown rival.

“Eh!—no, scarcely that. He wasn’t quite such a dab as that.”

“I can do it,” said Stephen with a superior smile.

“You? Not a bit of you!” said Mr. Cripps, incredulously.

“Yes, I can,” reiterated Stephen, delighted to have astonished his host.

“I must see it before I can believe that,” said Mr. Cripps. “Suppose you show me on my board.”

Stephen promptly accepted the challenge, and forgetting in his excitement all about school rules or Loman’s orders, accompanied Cripps to the bagatelle-room, with its sanded floor, smelling of stale tobacco and beer-dregs. His first attempt, greatly to Mr. Cripps’s glee, was unsuccessful.

“I knew you couldn’t,” exclaimed that worthy.

“I know I can do it,” said Stephen, excitedly. “Let’s try again.”

After a few more trials he made the two clear-boards, and Mr. Cripps was duly astonished and impressed.

“That’s what I call smart play,” said he. “Now, if I was a betting man, I’d wager a sixpence you couldn’t do it again.”

“Yes, I can, but I won’t bet,” said Stephen. He did do it again, and Mr. Cripps said it was a good job for him the young swell didn’t bet, or he would have lost his sixpence. Stephen was triumphant.

How long he would have gone on showing off his prowess to the admiring landlord of the Cockchafer, and how far he might have advanced in the art of public-house bagatelle, I cannot say, but the sudden striking of a clock and the entry of visitors into the room reminded him where he was.

“I must go back now,” he said, hurriedly.

“Must you? Well, come again soon. I’ve a great fancy to learn that there stroke. I’m a born fool at bagatelle. What do you say to another ginger-beer before you go?”

Stephen said “Thank you,” and then taking the newspaper in his hand bade Cripps good-bye.

“Good-bye, my fine young fellow. You’re one of the right sort, you are. No stuck-up nonsense about you. That’s why I fancy you. Bye-bye. My love to Mr. Loman.”

Stephen hurried back to Saint Dominic’s as fast as his legs would carry him. He was not quite comfortable about his evening’s proceedings, although he was not aware of having done anything wicked. Loman, a monitor, had given him leave to go down to Maltby, so that was hardly a crime; and as to the Cockchafer—well, he had only been in the private part of the house, and not the public bar, and surely there had been no harm in drinking ginger-beer and playing bagatelle, especially when he had distinctly refused to bet on the latter. But, explain it as he would, Stephen felt uncomfortable enough to determine him to say as little as possible about his expedition.

He found Loman impatiently awaiting him.

“Wherever have you been to all this time?” he demanded.

“The papers were all sold out,” said Stephen. “I tried seven places.”

Loman had eagerly caught up and opened the paper while Stephen nervously made this explanation, and he took no further heed of his fag, who presently, seeing he was no longer wanted, and relieved to get out of reach of questions, prudently retired.

A glance sufficed to confirm the bad news about the Derby. Sir Patrick had won, and it was a fact therefore that Loman owed Cripps and his friend between them thirty pounds, without the least possibility of paying them.

One thing was certain. He must see Cripps on Saturday, and trust to his luck (though that of late had not been very trustworthy) to pull him through, somehow.

Alas! what a spirit this in which to meet difficulties! Loman had yet to learn that it is one thing to regret, and another thing to repent; that it is one thing to call one’s self a fool, and another thing, quite, to cease to be one.

But, as he said to himself, he must go through with it now, and the first step took him deeper than ever into the mire.

For the coming Saturday was the day of the great cricket match, Sixth versus School, from which a Dominican would as soon think of deserting as of emigrating.

But Loman must desert if he was to keep his appointment, and he managed the proceeding with his now characteristic untruthfulness; a practice he would have scorned only a few months ago. How easy the first wrong step! What a long, weary road when one, with aching heart, attempts to retrace the way! And at present Loman had made no serious effort in that direction.

On the Friday morning, greatly to the astonishment of all his class-fellows, he appeared in his place with his arm in a sling.

“Hullo, Loman!” said Wren, the first whom he encountered, “what’s the row with you?”

“Sprained my wrist,” said Loman, to whom, alas!—so easy is the downward path when once entered on—a lie had become an easy thing to utter.

“How did you manage that?” exclaimed Callonby. “Mind you get it right by to-morrow, or we shall be in a fix.”

This little piece of flattery pleased Loman, who said—

“I’m afraid I shan’t be able to play.”

“What! Who’s that won’t be able to play?” said Raleigh, coming up in unwonted excitement.

“Loman; he’s sprained his wrist.”

“Have you shown it to Dr. Splints?” said Raleigh.

“No,” said Loman, beginning to feel uncomfortable. “It’s hardly bad enough for that.”

“Then it’s hardly bad enough to prevent your playing,” said Raleigh, drily.

Loman did not like this. He and Raleigh never got on well together, and it was evident the captain was more angry than sympathetic now.

“Whatever shall we do for bowlers?” said some one.

“I’m awfully sorry,” said Loman, wishing he was anywhere but where he was; “but how am I to help?”

“Whatever induced you to sprain your wrist?” said Wren. “You might just as well have put it off till Monday.”

“Just fancy how foolish we shall look if those young beggars beat us, as they are almost sure to do,” said Winter.

Loman was quickly losing his temper, for all this was, or seemed to be, addressed pointedly to him.

“What’s the use of talking like that?” he retorted. “You ass, you! as if I could help.”

“Shouldn’t wonder if you could help,” replied Winter.

“Perhaps,” suggested some one, “it was the Dominican put him out of joint. It certainly did give him a rap over the knuckles.”

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Loman, angrily, and half drawing his supposed sprained hand out of the sling.

“Shut up, you fellows,” interposed Raleigh, authoritatively. “Baynes will play in the eleven to-morrow instead of Loman, so there’s an end of the matter.”

Loman was sorely mortified. He had expected his defection would create quite a sensation, and that his class-fellows would be inconsolable at his accident. Instead of that, he had only contrived to quarrel with nearly all of them, alienating their sympathy; and in the end he was to be quietly superseded by Baynes, and the match was to go on as if he had never been heard of at Saint Dominic’s.

“Never mind; I’m bound to go and see Cripps. Besides,” said he to himself, “they’ll miss me to-morrow, whatever they say to-day.”

Next day, just when the great match was beginning, and the entire school was hanging breathless on the issue of every ball, Loman quietly slipped out of Saint Dominic’s, and walked rapidly and nervously down to the Cockchafer in Maltby.

“What shall I say to Cripps?” was the wild question he kept asking himself as he went along; and the answer had not come by the time he found himself standing within that worthy’s respectable premises.

Mr. Cripps was in his usual good humour.

“Why, it’s Mr. Loman! so it is!” he exclaimed, in a rapture. “Now who would have thought of seeing you here?”

Loman was perplexed.

“Why, you told me to come this afternoon,” said he.

“Did I? Ah, I dare say! Never mind. Very kind of a young gentleman like you to come and see the likes of me. What’ll you take?”

Loman did not know what to make of this at all.

“I came to see you about that—that horse you told me to bet against,” he said.

“I remember. What’s his name? Sir Patrick, wasn’t it? My friend told me that he’d, had the best of that. What was it? Ten bob?”

This affected ignorance of the whole matter in hand was utterly bewildering to Loman, who had fully expected that, instead of having to explain himself, he would have the matter pretty plainly explained to him by his sportive acquaintance.

“No, ten pounds. That was what I was to pay if the horse won; and, Cripps, I can’t pay it, or the twenty pounds either, to you.”

Cripps whistled.

“That’s a go and no mistake!” he said. “Afraid it won’t do, mister.”

“You told me Sir Patrick was sure not to win,” said Loman.

“Ah, there was several of us took in over that there horse,” coolly said Mr. Cripps. “I lost a shilling myself over him. Nice to be you, flush of cash, and able to pay straight down.”

“I can’t pay,” said Loman.

“Ah, but the governor can, I’ll wager,” insinuated Cripps.

“He would never do it! It’s no use asking him,” said Loman.

Cripps whistled again.

“That’s awkward. And my friend wants his money, too, and so do I.”

“I really can’t pay,” said Loman. “I say, Cripps, let us off that twenty pounds. I really didn’t mean about that rod.”

Mr. Cripps fired up in righteous indignation.

“Ah, I dare say, mister. You’ll come and snivel now, will you? But you were ready enough to cheat a honest man when you saw a chance. No, I’ll have my twenty or else there’ll be a rumpus. Make no mistake of that!”

The bare idea of a “rumpus” cowed Loman at once. Anything but that.

“Come, now,” said Cripps, encouragingly, “I’d wager you can raise the wind somewheres.”

“I wish I knew how. I see no chance whatever, unless—” and here a brilliant idea suddenly struck him—“unless I get the Nightingale. Of course; I say, Cripps, will you wait till September?”

“What! Three months! And how do you suppose I’m to find bread to eat till then?” exclaimed Mr. Cripps.

“Oh, do!” said Loman. “I’m certain to be able to pay then. I forgot all about the Nightingale.”

“The Nightingale? It must be an uncommon spicy bird to fetch in thirty pound!”

“It’s not a bird,” said Loman, laughing; “it’s a scholarship.”

“A what?”

“A scholarship. I’m in for an examination, you know, and whoever’s first gets fifty pounds a year for three years.”

“But suppose you ain’t first? what then?”

“Oh, but I’m sure to be. I’ve only got Fifth Form fellows against me, and I’m certain to beat them!”

“Well,” said Mr. Cripps, “I don’t so much care about your nightingales and cock-sparrows and scholarships, and all them traps, but I’d like to oblige you.”

“Oh, thank you!” cried Loman, delighted; and feeling already as if the debt was paid. “And you’ll get your friend to wait too, won’t you?”

“Can’t do that. I shall have to square up with him and look to you for the lot, and most likely drop into the workhouse for my pains.”

“Oh, no. You can be quite certain of getting the money.”

“Well, blessed if I ain’t a easy-going cove,” said Mr. Cripps, with a grin. “It ain’t every one as ’ud wait three months on your poll-parrot scholarships, or whatever you call ’em. Come, business is business. Give us your promise on a piece of paper—if you must impose upon me.”

Loman, only too delighted, wrote at Mr. Cripps’s dictation a promise to pay the thirty pounds, together with five pounds interest, in September, and quitted the Cockchafer with as light a heart as if he had actually paid off every penny of the debt.

“Of course I’m safe to get it! Why ever didn’t I think of that before? Won’t I just work the rest of the term! Nothing like having an object when you’re grinding.”

With this philosophical reflection, he re-entered Saint Dominic’s, and unobserved rejoined the spectators in the cricket-field, just in time to witness a very exciting finish to a fiercely contested encounter.


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Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/398

 384 mehr alles überfluten zu lassen, sondern ihn in das richtige Bett zu lenken, damit er so wahrhaft befruchtend und fördernd wirken könne. Die Geisteswissenschaften, mit der ungleich flüchtigeren und schwankenderen Natur ihres Gegenstandes, brauchen zu einer solchen Umkehr naturgemäss mehr Zeit. Aber eingeleitet ist sie auch hier schon. Und sie wird hier noch weiter gehen als bei den Naturwissenschaften; denn der Natur des menschlichen Geistes mit seiner Freiheit in alien Individuen und seiner Genialität in den höchsten Individuen hat der absolute Evolutionismus noch mehr Gewalt angetan als der Natur der materiellen Dinge.

Andrew Lang hatte sich seinen freien Blick auch gegenliber der Übermacht des Evolutionismus bewahrt. Zwar hat er, in einer Zeit, wo die ethnologischen Tatsachen erst zuzuströmen begannen, insbesondere dem psychologischen Evolutionismus seinen Tribut gezahlt. Aber er liess sich den Sinn für wirkliche Tatsachen durch keine noch so glänzende Theorie trüben. Gerade deshalb war er auch imstande, die Unstimmigkeiten dieser Theorien bezüglich der "Höchsten Wesen" der Naturvölker zu gewahren, an denen andere achtlos vorübergegangen waren. "Antecedently improbable it may be, but there it is," das war der klassische Ausdruck seines Wirklichkeitssinnes, den er einmal in einer Diskussion mit Mr. Hartland gebrauchte.

Der Zustand, in dem sich die Ethnologie gegenwärtig befindet, ist schon ein Ubergangszustand, und er mag für beide Telle sein Unangenehmes haben, für die "Alten" wie für die "Jungen", vorliiufig allerdings mehr noch fiir die Letzteren. Aber auch dieser Zustand wird seinen Nutzen haben fiir die Erforschung der wissenschaftlichen Wahrheit, wenn die Vertreter beider Richtungen, mit welcher Energie sie auch für ihre Anschauungen eintreten mögen, von einander achtungsvoll überzeugt sein können, dass jeder nichts anderes erstrebt, als die Wahrheit, wie er sie nun einmal versteht, bei sich und anderen zu immer klarerer Geltung zu bringen. Dann wird nämlich auch um so mehr die Geneigtheit vorhanden sein, die Kritik, die man von einem Vertreter der andern Richtung erfahrt, voll zu würdigen und daraufhin etwaige Fehler zu verbessern.

Und dann ergiebt sich für die Wissenschaft ein grosser Nutzen.