It is now time to return to Loman, whom we left two chapters ago, with
his usual luck, standing in Greenfield's study with the 8 pounds in his
hand which was finally to clear him of all his troubles, set him once
for all on his feet again, and take such a weight off his mind as ought
to leave him the lightest-hearted boy in all Saint Dominic's.
He stood there for a minute or two after Oliver and Wraysford had left
the room, too bewildered to collect his thoughts or realise one-half of
his good fortune, for he had come to Oliver in his extremity as a
desperate chance, fully expecting an angry rebuff--or, at best, a
chilling snub. But to get through the interview like this, and find the
money in his hand within three minutes of his entering the room--why, it
quite took his breath away.
Oliver Greenfield _was_ a queer, unaccountable fellow, and no mistake!
Yet, strange to say, when Loman did come to himself he did not burst out
into a rapture of delight and gratitude. On the contrary, he suddenly
felt himself growing to such a pitch of misery and low spirits as even
in the worst of his troubles he had never experienced. He repented
bitterly of ever bringing himself to come and ask such a favour of his
worst enemy, and, stranger than all, he felt his dislike for Greenfield
increased rather than swept away by this abrupt, startling piece of
generosity. Strange the whims that seize us! Loman would almost have
been happier in his old suspense about Cripps than to feel he owed such
a debt to such a creditor.
However, the thought of Cripps, his other creditor, flashed suddenly
through his mind at that moment, so, closing his hand over the money, he
turned moodily and left the room.
At any rate, he would get clear of Cripps now he had the chance.
As soon as ever morning school was over he took his hat and traversed
once more the familiar road between Saint Dominic's and the Cockchafer.
"Is Cripps at home?" he inquired of the potboy.
"Yas," said the boy. "Who wants him?"
"I do, you young blockhead!"
"You do? Oh, all right! I'll tell him, mister. Don't you collar no
mugs while I'm gone, mind!"
The very potboys despised and ridiculed him!
Loman waited patiently for a quarter of an hour, when the boy returned.
"Oh!" said he, "the governor can't see you, he says. He's a-smoking his
pipe, he says, and he ain't a-goin' to put himself about, he says, for
the likes of you. That's what he says! Ti ridde tol rol ro!" and here
the youth indulged in a spitefully cheerful carol as he resumed the
polishing of the mugs.
"Look here!" said Loman, miserable and half frightened, "tell him I
_must_ see him; I've got some money for him, tell him."
"No! have you?" said the boy. "Well, wait till I've done this here
job--I'm dead on this here job, I am! You can keep, you can."
This was too much even for the dispirited and cowed Loman. He caught
the impudent boy a box on the ear, which resounded all over the
Cockchafer, and sent him howling and yelling to his master.
Cripps appeared at last in a fury. What, he demanded, with half a dozen
oaths, did Loman mean by coming there and assaulting him and his
assistants? "What do you mean, you thieving jackanapes, you! Get out
of my shop, do you hear? or I'll get some one in who will help you out!
_I'll_ teach you to come here and make yourself at home, you lying--"
"Now, Cripps," began Loman.
"Hold your noise! do you hear?" said Cripps, savagely.
"I'm very sorry, Cripps," said the wretched boy; "I didn't mean to hurt
him, but he--"
"Oh! you won't go, won't you? Very good! we'll see if we can make you;"
and Cripps departed from the bar, leaving his young "patron" in anything
but a comfortable frame of mind.
For once in a way, however, Loman was roused, and would not go. The
boy--miserable specimen as he was--had some courage in him, and when
once goaded up to the proper pitch it came out. If he went, he argued
to himself, Cripps would certainly come up to Saint Dominic's after him.
If he waited till the police or some of the roughs came and ejected him
he could not be much worse off; and there was a chance that, by
remaining, he might still be able to pacify his evil genius.
So he stayed. Another quarter of an hour passed; no one came to turn
him out. A few customers came into the bar and were served by the sulky
potboy, but there was no sign of Cripps.
"Go and tell your master I'm here still, and want to see him
particularly," said Loman, presently, to the boy.
The boy looked up and scowled and rubbed his ear, but somehow that
timely blow of Loman's had wrought wonders with his spirit, for he
quietly went off and did as he was bid.
In a few minutes he came back and delivered the laconic message, "You're
got to wait."
This was satisfactory as far as it went. Loman did wait, simmering
inwardly all the time, and not wholly losing his desperation before once
again Cripps appeared and beckoned him inside.
"Here's the rest of the money," said Loman, hurriedly. "You can give me
back the bill now, Cripps."
Cripps took up the money, counted it and pocketed it, and then turned on
his victim with an impudent smile.
"Give me the bill," repeated Loman, suddenly turning pale with the
dreadful misgiving that after all he had not got rid of the blackguard.
"What do you want the bill for?" asked Cripps, laughing.
"Want it for? Why, Cripps--" and here Loman stopped short.
"Fire away," said Cripps.
"I've paid you all I owe," said Loman, trembling.
"What if you have?"
"Then give me back that bill!"
Cripps only laughed--a laugh which drove the boy frantic. The villain
was going to play him false after all. He had got the money, every
farthing of it, and now he was going to retain the bill which contained
Loman's promise to pay the whole amount! Poor Loman, he was no match in
cunning for this rogue. Who would believe him that he had paid, when
Cripps was still able to produce the promise signed with his own name to
do so?
Bitterly did the boy repent the day when first, by a yielding to deceit,
he had put himself in the power of such a villain!
He was too confounded and panic-struck to attempt either argument or
persuasion. He felt himself ruined, and muttering, in a voice which
trembled with misery, "I must tell father all about it," he turned to
go.
Oh, Loman! Why have you left such a resolve till now? Why, like that
other prodigal, have you waited till everything else has failed, till
your own resources and cunning have been exhausted to the last dregs,
before you turn and say this!
The boy uttered the words involuntarily, not intending that they should
be heard. Little he thought Cripps or any one would heed them. But
Cripps did heed them. His quick ear caught the words, and they _had_ a
meaning for him; for he might be able to cheat and browbeat and swindle
a boy, but when it came to dealing no longer with the boy, but with the
boy's father, Cripps was sharp enough to know that was a very different
matter. He had relied on the boy's fears of exposure and his dread of
his father's anger to carry his extortions to the utmost limit with
confidence. But now he had gone a step too far. When, in his
desperation, the boy naturally turned to the very being he had all along
most carefully kept ignorant of his proceedings, it was time for Cripps
to pull up.
He stopped Loman as he was going away, with a laugh, as he said, in his
old tones, "Steady there, young gentleman, what a hurry you are in! A
man can't have a little bit of fun, just to see how you like it, but
there you go, and give it all up, and go and get yourself into a regular
perspiration! Tell the governor, indeed! You don't suppose I'd let you
get yourself into such a mess as all that, do you? No, no. You shall
have the bill, my man, never fear."
"Oh, thank you, Cripps, thank you!" cried Loman, in a sudden convulsion
of gratitude and relief.
"'Pon my word, I might take offence, that I might, at your wanting the
paper. As if _I'd_ ever take advantage of a young gentleman like you!
No, no; honesty's the best policy for us poor folks as well as for you
nobs. No one can say I defrauded any one."
"Oh, no, of course not," cried Loman, enthusiastically. "I should like
to see any one who did!"
Mr Cripps, smiling sweetly and modestly, went to his cupboard, and
after a good deal of fumbling and search, produced the little slip of
blue paper he was looking for.
"Is that it?" cried the excited Loman.
"Looks like it," said Cripps, unfolding it and reading out, with his
back to the boy, "`Three months after date I promise to pay George
Cripps thirty-five pounds, value received. Signed, E. Loman.' That's
about it, eh, young gentleman? Well, blessed if I ain't a soft-hearted
chap after the doing you've given me over this here business. Look
here; here goes."
And so saying, Mr Cripps first tore the paper up into little bits, and
then threw the whole into the fire before the eyes of the delighted
Loman.
"Thanks, Cripps, thanks," said the boy. "I am so glad everything's
settled now, and I am so sorry to have kept you waiting so long."
"Oh, well, as long as it's been an obligement to you, I don't so much
care," said the virtuous Cripps. "And now you've done with me I suppose
you'll cut me dead, eh, young gentleman? Just the way. You stick to us
as long as you can get anything out of us, and then we're nobodies."
And here Mr Cripps looked very dejected.
"Oh, no," said Loman, "I don't mean to cut you, Cripps. I shall come
down now and then--really I will--when I can manage it. Good-bye now."
And he held out his hand.
Foolish and wicked as Loman was, there was still left in him some of
that boyish generosity which makes one ready to forget injuries and
quick to acknowledge a good turn. Loman forgot for a moment all the
hideous past, with its suspense and humiliations and miseries, and
remembered only that Cripps had torn up the bill and allowed him to
clear off accounts once for all at the hated Cockchafer. Alas! he had
forgotten, too, about telling all to his father!
"Good-day, young gentleman," said Cripps, with a pensive face which made
the boy quite sorry to see.
He shook hands cordially and gratefully, and departed lighter in heart
than he had felt for some time.
But as he returned to Saint Dominic's the thought of Oliver, and of his
debt to him, returned, and turned again all his satisfaction into
vexation. He wished he had the money that moment to fling back into the
fellow's face!
I don't pretend to explain this whim of Loman's. It may have been his
conscience which prompted it. For a mean person nearly always detests
an honest one, and the more open and generous the one is, the meaner the
other feels in his own heart by contrast.
However, for some days Loman had not the painful reminder of his debt
often before his eyes; for as long as the Doctor was absent Oliver
remained in the Fifth.
At length, however, the head master returned, restored and well, and
immediately the "removes" were put into force, and Oliver and Wraysford
found themselves duly installed on the lowest bench of the Sixth--the
only other occupant of which was Loman. The two friends, however, held
very little intercourse with their new class-fellow, and Oliver never
once referred to the eight pounds; and, like every one and everything
else, Loman grew accustomed to the idea of being his rival's debtor,
and, as the days went on, ceased to be greatly troubled by the fact at
all.
But an event happened one day, shortly after the Doctor's return, which
gave every one something else to think about besides loans and debtors.
It was the morning of the day fixed for the great football match against
the County, and every one, even the Sixth and Fifth, chafed somewhat at
the two hours appointed on such a day for so mundane an occupation as
lessons.
Who could think of lessons when any minute the County men might turn up?
Who could be bothered with dactyls and spondees when goal-posts and
touch-lines were far more to the point? And who could be expected to
fix his mind on hexameters and elegiacs when the height of human
perfection lay in a straight drop-kick or a fast double past the enemy's
half-backs? However, the Doctor had made up his mind Latin verses
should get their share of attention that morning, and the two head forms
were compelled to submit as best they could.
Now, on this occasion, the Doctor was specially interested in the
subject in hand, and waxed more than usually eloquent over the
comparative beauties of Horace and Virgil and Ovid, and went into the
minutest details about their metres. Over one line which contained what
seemed to be a false quantity he really became excited.
"It is a most remarkable thing, and I am really pleased we have fallen
on the passage," said he, "that this identical mistake, if it is a
mistake, occurs in a line of Juvenal; it is in the--dear me, I have
forgotten how it begins! Has any one here a Juvenal?"
"I have one in my study, sir," said Loman. (Juvenal had been one of the
Latin subjects for the Nightingale.)
"Ah! Would you fetch it, Loman, please? I think I know precisely where
the line occurs."
Loman rose and went for the book, which he found upon his bookcase,
enjoying a dignified and dusty repose on the top shelf. Carefully
brushing off the dust, so as to give the volume a rather less unused
look, he returned with it to the class-room, and handed it to the
Doctor.
"Thank you, Loman. Now, it is in the Fourth--no, the Fifth Satire,"
said he, turning over the pages. "Let me see--yes, not far from--ah!"
This last exclamation was uttered in a voice which made every boy in the
room look suddenly up and fix his eyes on the Doctor. It was evidently
something more than an exclamation of recognition on finding the desired
passage. There was too much surprise and too much pain in the word for
that.
Was the Doctor ill? He closed the book and sat back in his chair in a
sort of bewilderment. Then suddenly, and with an evident effort,
recovering himself, he let his eyes once more rest on the closed
Juvenal.
"Loman," he said, "will you come and find the passage for me? Turn to
the Fifth Satire."
Loman obeyed, much wondering, notwithstanding, why the Doctor should ask
him, of all people, to come up and turn to the passage.
He advanced to the head master's desk and took up the Juvenal.
"The Fifth Satire," repeated the Doctor, keeping his eyes on the book.
Certainly the Doctor was very queer this morning. One would suppose his
life depended on the discovery of that unlucky line, so keenly he
watched Loman as he turned over the pages.
Was the book bewitched? Loman, as he held it, suddenly turned deadly
white, and closed it quickly, as if between the leaves there lay a
scorpion! Then again, seeing the Doctor's eye fixed on him, he opened
it, and, with faltering voice, began to read the line.
"That will do. Hand me the book, Loman."
The Doctor's voice, as he uttered these words, was strangely solemn.
Loman hurriedly took a paper from between the leaves and handed the book
to the Doctor.
"Hand me that paper, Loman!"
Loman hesitated.
"Obey me, Loman!"
Loman looked once at the Doctor, and once at the Juvenal; then, with a
groan, he flung the paper down on to the desk.
The Doctor took it up.
"This paper," said he, slowly, and in an agitated voice--"this paper is
the missing paper of questions for the Nightingale Scholarship last
term. Loman, remain here, please. The other boys may go."