It would be difficult to picture the horror and dismay which followed
the terrible termination to the football match described in our last
chapter.
For a second or two every one stood where he was, as if rooted to the
ground. Then with an exclamation of horror Mr Freshfield bounded to
the side of the prostrate boy.
"Stand back and give him air!" cried the master, as the school closed
round and gazed with looks of terror on the form of their companion. He
lay with one arm above his head just as he had fallen. His cap lay a
yard or two off where he had tossed it before making his final charge.
His eyes were closed, and the deathly pallor of his face was unmoved by
even a quiver of life.
"He's dead!" gasped Farfield.
Mr Freshfield, who had been hastily loosening Forrester's collar, and
had rested his hand for an instant on his heart, looked up with a face
almost as white as the boy's and said--
"Go for the doctor!--and some water."
Half a dozen boys started--thankful to do anything. Before the ring
could close up again the ungainly form of Jeffreys, still panting from
his run, elbowed his way to the front. As his eyes fell on the form of
his victim his face turned an ashy hue. Those who watched him saw that
he was struggling to speak, but no words came. He stood like one turned
suddenly to stone.
But not for long.
With a cry something resembling a howl, the school by a sudden
simultaneous movement turned upon him.
He put up his hand instinctively, half-deprecatingly, half in self-
defence. Then as his eyes dropped once more on the motionless form over
which Mr Freshfield was bending, he took half a step forward and
gasped, "I did not--"
Whatever he had intended to say was drowned by another howl of
execration. The sound of his voice seemed to have opened the floodgates
and let loose the pent-up feelings of the onlookers. A score of boys
rushed between him and his victim and hustled him roughly out of the
ring.
"Murderer!" cried Scarfe as he gave the first thrust.
And amidst echoes of that terrible cry the Cad was driven forth.
Once he turned with savage face, as though he would resist and fight his
way back into the ring. But it was only for a moment. It may have been
a sudden glimpse of that marble face on the grass, or it may have been
terror. But his uplifted hand fell again at his side, and he dragged
himself dejectedly to the outskirts of the crowd.
There he still hovered, his livid face always turned towards the centre,
drinking in every sound and marking every movement, but not attempting
again to challenge the resentment of his school-fellows by attempting to
enter the awe-struck circle.
It seemed an age before help came. The crowd stood round silent and
motionless, with their eyes fixed on the poor lifeless head which rested
on Mr Freshfield's knee; straining their eyes for one sign of
animation, yearning still more for the arrival of the doctor.
Mr Freshfield did not dare to lift the form, or even beyond gently
raising the head, to move it in any way. How anxiously all watched as,
when the water arrived, he softly sponged the brow and held the glass to
the white lips!
Alas! the dark lashes still drooped over those closed eyes, and as each
moment passed Bolsover felt that it stood in the shadow of death.
At last there was a stir, as the sound of wheels approached in the lane.
And presently the figure of the doctor, accompanied by Mr Frampton,
was seen running across the meadow.
As they reached the outskirts of the crowd, Jeffreys laid his hand on
the doctor's arm with an appealing gesture.
"I did not mean--" he began.
But the doctor passed on through the path which the crowd opened for him
to the fallen boy's side.
It was a moment of terrible suspense as he knelt and touched the boy's
wrist, and applied his ear to his chest. Then in a hurried whisper he
asked two questions of Mr Freshfield, then again bent over the
inanimate form.
They could tell by the look on his face as he looked up that there was
hope--for there was life!
"He's not dead!" they heard him whisper to Mr Frampton.
Still they stood round, silent and motionless. The relief itself was
terrible. He was not dead, but would those deep-fringed eyes ever open
again?
The doctor whispered again to Mr Frampton and Mr Freshfield, and the
two passed their hands under the prostrate form to lift it. But before
they could do so the doctor, who never took his eyes off the boy's face,
held up his hand suddenly, and said "No! Better have a hurdle,"
pointing to one which lay not far off on the grass.
A dozen boys darted for it, and a dozen more laid their coats upon it to
make a bed. Once more, amid terrible suspense, they saw the helpless
form raised gently and deposited on the hurdle. A sigh of relief
escaped when the operation was over, and the sad burden, supported at
each corner by the two masters, Scarfe and Farfield, began to move
slowly towards the school.
"Slowly, and do not keep step. Above all things avoid a jolt," said the
doctor, keeping the boy's hand in his own.
The crowd opened to let them pass, and then followed in mournful
procession.
As the bearers passed on, Jeffreys, who all this time had been
forgotten, but who had never once turned his face from where Forrester
lay, stepped quickly forward as though to assist in carrying the litter.
His sudden movement, and the startling gesture that accompanied it,
disconcerted the bearers, and caused them for a moment to quicken their
step, thus imparting an unmistakable shock to the precious burden.
The doctor uttered an exclamation of vexation and ordered a halt.
"Stand back, sir!" he cried angrily, waving Jeffreys back; "a jolt like
that may be fatal!"
An authority still more potent than that of the doctor was at hand to
prevent a recurrence of the danger. Jeffreys was flung out of reach of
the litter by twenty angry hands and hounded out of the procession.
He did not attempt to rejoin it. For a moment he stood and watched it
as it passed slowly on. A cold sweat stood on his brow, and every
breath was a gasp. Then he turned slowly back to the spot where
Forrester had fallen, and threw himself on the ground in a paroxysm of
rage and misery. It was late and growing dark as he re-entered the
school. There was a strange, weird silence about the place that
contrasted startlingly with the usual evening clamour. The boys were
mostly in their studies or collected in whispering groups in the
schoolrooms.
As Jeffreys entered, one or two small boys near the door hissed him and
ran away. Others who met him in the passage and on the stairs glared at
him with looks of mingled horror and aversion, which would have frozen
any ordinary fellow.
Jeffreys, however, did not appear to heed it, still less to avoid it.
Entering the Sixth Form room, he found most of his colleagues gathered,
discussing the tragedy of the day in the dim light of the bay window.
So engrossed were they that they never noticed his entrance, and it was
not till after standing a minute listening to their talk he broke in, in
his loud tones--
"Is Forrester dead?"
The sound of his voice, so harsh and unexpected, had the effect of an
explosion in their midst.
They recoiled from it, startled and half-scared. Then, quickly
perceiving the intruder, they turned upon him with a howl.
But this time the Cad did not retreat before them. He held up his hand
to stop them with a gesture almost of authority.
"Don't!" he exclaimed. "I'll go. But tell me, some one, is he dead?"
His big form loomed out in the twilight a head taller than any of his
companions, and there was something in his tone and attitude that held
them back.
"You will be sorry to hear," said Scarfe, one of the first to recover
his self-control, and with a double-edge of bitterness in his voice,
"that he was alive an hour ago."
Jeffreys gave a gasp, and held up his hand again.
"Is there hope for him, then?"
"Not with you in the school, you murderer!" exclaimed Farfield,
advancing on the Cad, and striking him on the mouth.
Farfield had counted the cost, and was prepared for the furious
onslaught which he felt certain would follow.
But Jeffreys seemed scarcely even to be aware of the blow. He kept his
eyes on Scarfe, to whom he had addressed his last question, and said--
"You won't believe me. I didn't mean it."
"Don't tell lies," said Scarfe, "you did--coward!"
Jeffreys turned on his heel with what sounded like a sigh. The fury of
his companions, which had more than once been on the point of breaking
loose in the course of the short conference, vented itself in a howl as
the door closed behind him. And yet, some said to themselves, would a
murderer have stood and faced them all as he had done?
The long night passed anxiously and sleeplessly for most of the
inhabitants of Bolsover. The event of the day had awed them into
something like a common feeling. They forgot their own petty quarrels
and grievances for the time, and thought of nothing but poor Forrester.
The doctor and Mr Frampton never quitted his room all night. Boys who,
refusing to go to bed, sat anxiously, with their study doors open, eager
to catch the first sound proceeding from that solemn chamber, waited in
vain, and dropped asleep where they sat as the night gave place to dawn.
Even the masters hovered restlessly about with careworn faces, and full
of misgivings as hour passed hour without tidings.
At length--it was about ten o'clock, and the school bell was just
beginning to toll for morning chapel--the door opened, and Mr Frampton
stepped quickly out of the sick-room.
"Stop the bell at once!" he said.
Then Forrester must still be living!
"How is he?" asked a dozen voices, as the head-master passed down the
corridor.
"There is hope," said Mr Frampton, "and, thank God! signs of returning
consciousness."
And with that grain of comfort wearied Bolsover filed slowly into
church.
As Mr Frampton reached his study door he found Scarfe and Farfield
waiting for him.
"Well?" said he wearily, seeing that they had something to say. "Come
in."
They followed him into the room.
"Is there really hope?" said Scarfe, who truly loved the injured boy.
"I think so. He never moved or showed sign of life, except the beating
of his heart, till an hour ago. Then he moved his head and opened his
eyes."
"Did he know you, sir?"
"The doctor thinks he did. But everything depends now on quiet and
care."
"We wanted to speak to you, sir, about the--the accident," said Farfield
with a little hesitation.
"Yes. I have hardly heard how it happened, except that he fell in
attempting to collar Jeffreys. Was it not so?"
"Yes, sir," replied Farfield. "But--"
"Well, what?" asked Mr Frampton, noticing his hesitation.
"We don't feel sure that it was altogether an accident," said Farfield.
"What! Do you mean that the boy was intentionally injured?"
"Jeffreys might easily have run round him. Anybody else would. He had
the whole field to himself, and no one even near him behind."
"But was it not Forrester who got in front of him?"
"Of course he tried to collar him, sir," said Scarfe; "but he's only a
little boy, and Jeffreys is a giant. Jeffreys might have fended him off
with his arm, as he did the other fellows who had tried to stop him, or
he might have run round him. Instead of that,"--and here the speaker's
voice trembled with indignation--"he charged dead at him, and ran right
over him."
Mr Frampton's face clouded over.
"Jeffreys is a clumsy fellow, is he not?" he asked.
"Yes," said Scarfe; "and if it had been any one else than Forrester, we
should all have put it down to his stupidity."
"You mean," said the head-master, "that he had a quarrel with
Forrester?"
"He hated Forrester. Every one knew that. Forrester used to make fun
of him and enrage him."
"And you mean to tell me you believe this big boy of nineteen, out of
revenge, deliberately ran over young Forrester in the way you describe?"
"I'm sure of it, sir," said Farfield unhesitatingly.
"No one doubts it," said Scarfe.
Mr Frampton took an uneasy turn up and down the room. He hated tale-
bearers; but this seemed a case in which he was bound to listen and
inquire further.
"Scarfe and Farfield," said he, after a long pause, "you know of course
as well as I do the nature of the charge you are bringing against your
schoolfellow--the most awful charge one human being can bring against
another. Are you prepared to repeat all you have said to me in
Jeffreys' presence to-morrow, and before the whole school?"
"Certainly, sir," said both boys.
"It was our duty to tell you, sir," said Scarfe; "and only fair to poor
young Forrester."
"Nothing less than a sense of duty could justify the bringing of such a
terrible accusation," said the head-master, "and I am relieved that you
are prepared to repeat it publicly--to-morrow. For to-day, let us thank
God for the hope He gives us of the poor sufferer. Good-bye."
Much as he could have wished it, it was impossible for Mr Frampton,
wearied out as he was with his night's watching, to dismiss from his
mind the serious statement which his two senior boys had made. The
responsibility which rested on him in consequence was terrible, and it
required all his courage to face it.
That afternoon he sent for Mr Freshfield, and repeated to him the
substance of the accusation against Jeffreys, asking him if he had
noticed anything calculated to confirm the suspicion expressed by the
boys.
Mr Freshfield was naturally very much startled.
"If you had not mentioned it," he said, "I should never have dreamed of
such a thing. But I confess I have noticed that Forrester and Jeffreys
were on bad terms. Forrester is a mischievous boy, and Jeffreys, who
you know is rather a lout, seems to have been his special butt. I am
afraid, too, that Jeffreys' short temper rather encouraged his
tormentors."
"Yes, but about the accident," said Mr Frampton; "you were on the
ground, you know. Did you notice anything then?"
"There was a little horseplay as the sides were changing over at half-
time. Forrester, among others, was taunting Jeffreys with a bad piece
of play, and threw something at him. I was rather struck by the look
almost of fury which passed across Jeffreys' face. But it seemed to me
he got better of his feelings with an effort and went on without heeding
what was said to him."
"That was not long before the accident?"
"About a quarter of an hour. His run down the field at the last was
really a good piece of play, and every one seemed surprised. But there
was any amount of room and time to get past Forrester instead of
charging right on to him. It's possible, of course, he may have lost
his head and not seen what he was doing."
Mr Frampton shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," said he with a dejected look, "I wish you could have told me
anything but what you have. At any rate, to-morrow morning the matter
must be faced and decided upon. Jeffreys is unpopular in the school, is
he not?"
"Most unpopular," said Mr Freshfield.
"That will make our responsibility all the greater," said the head-
master. "He will have every one's hand against him."
"And you may be quite certain he will do himself injustice. He always
does. But what of Forrester?"
"He is conscious, and has taken some nourishment; that is all I can say,
except, indeed," added Mr Frampton, with a groan, "that if he lives the
doctor says it will be as a cripple."
The day dragged wearily on, and night came at last. Most of the boys,
worn-out with their last night's vigil, went to bed and slept soundly.
The doctor, too, leaving his patient in the charge of a trained nurse,
specially summoned, returned home, reporting hopefully of the case as he
departed.
In two studies at Bolsover that night, however, there was no rest. Far
into the night Mr Frampton paced to and fro across the floor. His
hopes and ambitions had fallen like a house of cards. The school he had
been about to reform and regenerate had sunk in one day lower than ever
before. There was something worse than dry-rot in it now. But Mr
Frampton was a brave man; and that night he spent in arming himself for
the task that lay before him. Yet how he dreaded that scene to-morrow!
How he wished that this hideous nightmare were after all a dream, and
that he could awake and find Bolsover where it was even yesterday
morning! The other watcher was Jeffreys. He had slept not a wink the
night before, and to-night sleep seemed still more impossible. Had you
seen him as he sat there listlessly in his chair, with his gaunt, ugly
face and restless lips, you would have been inclined, I hope, to pity
him, cad as he was. Hour after hour he sat there without changing his
posture, cloud after cloud chasing one another across his brow, as they
chased one another across the pale face of the moon outside.
At length, as it seemed, with an effort he rose to his feet and slipped
off his boots. His candle had burned nearly out, but the moon was
bright enough to light his room without it, so he extinguished it and
softly opened the door.
The passage was silent, the only sounds being the heavy breathing
somewhere of a weary boy, and the occasional creaking of a board as he
crept along on tip-toe.
At the end of the passage he turned aside a few steps to a door, and
stood listening. Some one was moving inside. There was the rustle of a
dress and the tinkle of a spoon in a cup. Then he heard a voice, and
oh, how his heart beat as he listened!
"I'm tired," it said wearily.
That was all. Jeffreys heard the smoothing of a pillow and a woman's
soothing whisper hushing the sufferer to rest.
The drops stood in beads on his brow as he stood there and listened.
In a little all became quiet, and presently a soft, regular breathing
told him that some one was sleeping.
He put his hand cautiously to the handle and held it there a minute
before he dared turn it. At last he did so, and opened the door a few
inches. The breathing went regularly on. Inch by inch he pushed the
door back till he could catch a glimpse in the moonlight of the bed, and
a dark head of hair on the pillow. An inch or two more, and he could
see the whole room and the nurse dozing in the corner. Stealthily, like
a thief, he advanced into the room and approached the bed. The sufferer
was lying motionless, and still breathing regularly.
Jeffreys took a step forward to look at his face. At that moment the
moonlight streamed in at the window and lit up the room. Then, to his
terror, he noticed that the patient was awake, and lying with eyes wide
open gazing at the ceiling. Suddenly, and before Jeffreys could
withdraw, the eyes turned and met his. For an instant they rested there
vacantly, then a gasp and a shriek of horror proclaimed that Forrester
had recognised him.
In a moment he was outside the door, and had closed it before the nurse
started up from her slumber.
He had not been in his study a minute when he heard a sound of footsteps
and whispered voices without. The boy's cry had reached the wakeful
ears of Mr Frampton, and already he was on his way to the sick-chamber.
Jeffreys sank down on his bed in an agony of terror and suspense. The
boy's cry resounded in his ears and deafened him, till at last he could
endure it no longer.
Next morning, when the school was gathered in the hall, after prayers,
Mr Frampton, looking round him, missed the figure that was uppermost in
his thoughts.
"Will some one tell Jeffreys to come here?" he said.
Mr Freshfield went, but returned suddenly to announce that Jeffreys'
study was empty, and that a rope formed of sheets suspended from his
window made it evident he had escaped in the night and quitted Bolsover.