ALL BUT LOST
A Novel.
BY
G. A. HENTY,
AUTHOR OF “THE MARCH TO MAGDALA,” ETC., ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL I.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
1869.
[_The Right of Translation is reserved._]
LONDON:
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
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CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I.— COLLEGE LIFE 1
II.— THE DUSTMAN’S FAMILY 22
III.— BROKEN DOWN 46
IV.— THE OWNERS OF WYVERN HALL 70
V.— A MODEST ANNIVERSARY 94
VI.— THE BINGHAMS 118
VII.— A STARTLING SUGGESTION 138
VIII.— A SHATTERED HOME 169
IX.— WHAT WILL IT LEAD TO? 195
X.— PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL 221
XI— AN EVENING AT THE HOLLS’ 244
XII.— THWARTED PLANS 264
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ALL BUT LOST.
CHAPTER I.
COLLEGE LIFE.
It is near the end of the Lent term at Cambridge, a raw, damp day. The
grey clouds are drifting thick and low, over the flat fen country, and a
fine mist is falling steadily. But for once no one seems to mind the
weather. It is two o’clock, and from all the colleges the men are
pouring out in groups, on their way down to the river.
Hardly a soul in the University remains behind. Even the reading men
have closed their books for the afternoon, have given up their daily
constitutional out beyond Trumpington, and are going down to see their
college eights row.
It is the last day of the races. Along the men tramp in little knots
through the narrow winding streets—talking excitedly as they go, and
making many bets as to the fortune of the day—and then, across the wet
grass, down to the water side.
Here those who are to row cross the floating bridge to the boat-houses,
while the others walk slowly along the banks, to see the boats as they
paddle by on their way down. Soon they come; John’s in its blazing
scarlet, Trinity in dark blue, cherry-coloured Emanuel, chocolate
Corpus, and violet Caius; Trinity Hall in its sober grey, Sidney in
bright orange, and Queen’s in green.[1] These and many others sweep
past, and the narrow river seems alive with the flashing oars.
Footnote 1:
Many of the colours have since been changed.
The men on the banks hurry now, to be up at the starting posts in time.
Some trot along for a little way, by the side of the boat they are most
interested in, watching with anxious eye, the condition and form of each
man, and the regular swing of the crew. Now they have arrived at the
post-reach, and are clustered along the towing path, while the boats, by
this time empty, lie at their respective stations. Their crews stand
alongside, looking grave and anxious, and receive the final words of
advice and admonition from their captains.
At length the last boat has arrived at its post, and the first gun
fires. There are three minutes yet, but the men take their places in
their boats, strip off the upper jerseys and comforters in which they
are wrapped, and, amid a perfect babel of last words, of little speeches
of encouragement and good will, from their friends on the bank, push
slowly off.
The crowd on the towing-path clusters thickest round the first three
boats, but our place is by the fifth, for that contains the men whose
fortunes will be the subject of this story. It is Caius; before it lies
Emanuel, behind it Trinity Hall, confessedly the best crew of the three.
Another gun. The tumult on the bank is hushed as if by magic, umbrellas
are closed, coats buttoned up, and all prepare for a start. The boats
lie out in the middle of the stream; twenty of them in a long line; each
with its eight stalwart oarsmen, all in white, their caps forming the
only distinguishing badges. Each of the coxswains holds in his hand a
rope attached to his post. These are forty yards apart, and each boat’s
bow is therefore only some sixty feet from the rudder of the one before
it.
There is a dead silence, broken only by voices of men on the bank
counting the seconds, and by the short quick orders of the coxswains.
“Fifteen seconds gone;”—“Paddle bow and two;”—“Twenty;” “Thirty;” “Forty
seconds gone;” “Forty-five;”—“Pull half a stroke bow;”—“Fifty;”
“Fifty-five;”—“Forward all;”—“Sixty.” As the word is heard, the gun is
fired; a hundred and sixty oars strike the water as if by one impulse.
At the same moment a roar of exhortation and encouragement breaks from
the crowd on the bank; they set off to run—a wild, pushing, shouting
throng.
No easy matter is it to keep up with the flying boats, jostled and
pushed in that excited, eager crowd. Woe be to him who falls,—fortunate
by comparison he who is pushed into the river. A wild looking set are
they: men in boating dresses of every variety of colour, their arms
waving frantically; men in pea-jackets, and waterproof coats and wraps
of every description; sober reading men, lost in the tumult, bewildered
and hustled, intent only on keeping their feet, all shouting in voices
which grow momentarily hoarse and broken.
The boats had got an equally good start, but in the first few hundred
yards Trinity Hall had considerably lessened the gap between itself and
Caius, while the latter had gained but slightly upon Emanuel. In this
order they round the post corner, and dash on through the gut to Grassy.
“Now bow and three, now bow and three,” is the shout, and the boats
sweep round the sharp curve.
Here Emanuel steers rather wild, and her pursuer has palpably gained
upon her. The shouting redoubles; men who have dropped behind from the
leading boats join the throng and take up the cry, “Now, Caius, now;
you’re gaining, you’re gaining.” “Now, Trinity Hall, take her along.”
There are not thirty feet between Emanuel and Caius, while Trinity
Hall is not twenty behind the latter. On they fly, the boats leaping
forward at each stroke like long hungry water snakes after their prey,
past the Plough, and round Ditton corner. Here a fresh burst cheering
breaks out from the opposite bank, from numbers stationed there;—dons
too old and staid to run along the towing path, and men on horse-back,
who start to gallop alongside. Many ladies are there too; these wave
their handkerchiefs and parasols, and would like to run along with the
rest. On the boats dart; rounding the corner the tired crews pull with
renewed energy and hope. It is straight home now; only another half
mile. They are nearing each other fast. There is certain to be a bump:
which boat will make it? Nearer and nearer. Trinity Hall overlaps
Caius; but her bow has not touched her flying adversary, and whenever
it draws near, the rudder of the Caius boat is slightly turned, and a
rush of water thrown against it. This cannot last. Inch by inch they
draw up, and Caius is still three feet behind Emanuel. Her chance
seems hopeless. All at once, in a momentary lull of the shouting, a
well-known voice from the throng, that of one of the college tutors,
himself once a famous oar, comes out clear and strong—“Now, Caius,
now—twenty strokes, and you are in to them. One—two—three.” The crowd
take up the cry: “four”—“five”—“six;” and at each stroke the boat
seems to leap upon its adversary. “Seven”—“eight”—“three more and you
do it.” “Nine”—“ten”—“eleven;” and a last wild cheer breaks out as the
nose of the Caius boat touches the rudder of Emanuel, and the bump is
made.
The two boats immediately pull aside to let those behind them pass, and
the gasping crews lean on their oars, exhausted and breathless. One or
two get out, too done-up to pull farther, while friends on the bank take
their places. The light University blue flag, with the Caius’ arms in
the centre, is hoisted triumphantly in the stern, and the boat paddles
quietly on again, saluted by a burst of “see the conquering hero comes,”
from the band on the barge near the railway bridge. The excitement is
over, and the men on the bank, awaking to the consciousness that they
are terribly wet, once more put up their umbrellas, and make the best of
their way back to college.
It is evening now in the quiet courts of Caius. The wind has quite
dropped, the rain has ceased, and the night is still and dark; but from
some of the windows the lights stream out brightly into the gloom, and
sounds of singing and loud laughter at times break out across the
deserted court.
Now a man crosses the court, smoking a short pipe, with a very battered
cap upon his head, and a very short gown over his shoulders; goes up the
stairs to one of the rooms from which the laughter and noise come
loudest, stops at a door over which the name of Grahame is painted in
white letters, opens it, and goes in.
His arrival is greeted with shouts of welcome, with a great thumping of
tumblers, and cries of “Hurrah, seven! Well rowed, old man!”
“Come up this way, Frank,” a voice from the other end of the room
shouted through the smoke; “I have kept a place for you here by me.”
“I’ll come as soon as I can see my way,” the new-comer answered; “but,
upon my word, considering that it’s barely nine o’clock yet, you have
managed to blow a very fair amount of tobacco smoke between you.”
Accordingly he made his way up to the end of the room, and took his seat
by the side of his host, who was the captain and stroke of the Caius
eight, and had given this party to celebrate the victory of the day, and
the termination of the last month’s training. The men round the table,
by the unanimity and earnestness with which they were smoking, seemed
determined to make up for their long abstinence from the fragrant weed.
Frank Maynard, the new comer, was a tall, wiry man, lithe and sinewy,
with broad sloping shoulders. His face was long and narrow, still
whiskerless, or nearly so, and he would be probably a much
better-looking man in another two or three years than he was now. But he
could never be handsome; his features were by no means regular, and his
honest eyes, frank smile, and powerful frame, constituted at present his
only claims to attraction. He was generally addressed by his Christian
name, a sure sign at the University of unusual popularity. Upon Frank’s
left sat his cousin, Fred Bingham, and a stronger contrast could hardly
be imagined. Fred Bingham was under the middle height, and his figure
was extremely slight, almost as much so as that of a boy of fourteen,
and his waist could have been spanned by the hands of an ordinary man.
Apart from the extraordinary youthfulness of his appearance, he was
good-looking, with well-cut aristocratic features. His hair was very
fair, and his face had hardly a trace of colour. His voice was
high-pitched and thin, and his laugh especially more resembled that of a
girl than a man. He had small and well-formed feet, but his hands
curiously were large, red, and coarse. Among a certain set in the
college with whom he cared to make himself agreeable he was much liked,
but among the boating set he was intensely unpopular. These big, strong
men were antipathetic to him, their powerful figures dwarfed his, their
deep hearty voices drowned his weak treble and girlish laugh, and his
disagreeable remarks and cutting sneers frequently caused disputes which
it needed all his cousin Frank’s influence to allay. Indeed, had it not
been for Frank’s popularity, the crew would never have retained him for
their coxswain, notwithstanding the fact that he really was a most
useful man, always cool and collected, with a perfect knowledge of the
river, a good judge of rowing, and above all a feather-weight.
It is unnecessary to enter into any details as to the doings of the
evening, the speech-making, the songs, the drinking, and the smoking.
Every one can imagine the scene for himself, and may conceive the noise,
the shouting and laughing which twenty young fellows in full health and
spirits, highly satisfied with themselves and their day’s work, would
make upon such an occasion. So great was the hubbub indeed that the dons
across the court began to think that even the victory of the day, which
they themselves had discussed with great satisfaction over their wine in
the common room, could hardly excuse such an uproarious meeting as this.
About midnight, however, the party began to break up, and the men
scattered over the college to their respective rooms, singing snatches
of songs as they went. And then the courts were still again. Frank
Maynard, and a few of the quieter men, sat for another hour smoking and
discussing the race, agreeing that the credit of the day was mainly due
to Crockford, the don who had called upon them for the final ten strokes
which had effected the bump. After this they, too, separated, and in a
few minutes Caius was quiet for the night.
Frank Maynard had not been very long asleep when he was awakened by a
shouting, and the sound of running in the street. He opened his eyes—the
room was lit up with a dull red light—and he hardly needed the cry of
“Fire! fire!” to tell him what was the matter. He leaped from his bed,
threw up his window, and looked out. There were no flames visible, but
the fronts of the houses on the opposite side of the road were aglow
with a dark fiery glare. It was evident that the flames were behind
him—that one of the colleges was on fire. He ran into the
sitting-room—to the windows which looked into the court, and there,
through the trees before him, across the court, was a great glare, and
sparks flying up. It was close—so close that he could not tell whether
it was in the next court of his own college or in Trinity Hall, which
lies behind it, separated only by a narrow lane.
It was the work of a minute to throw on his clothes, and to run
downstairs and across to the gateway leading to the next court; and then
he saw that the fire was not there, but in Trinity Hall.
Turning back, he ran to the porter’s-lodge. It was already open, and the
porter, in answer to an appeal at the gate for assistance, had just gone
into the college to rouse the men.
Frank ran down the narrow lane between Caius and the schools, and in
another minute was in Trinity Hall. From the rooms above the gateway a
volume of flame and red smoke was pouring out. Not many men were as yet
in the court; those there were, belonged to the college itself. They
were looking on, ready enough to assist, but helpless at present. The
engines had not yet arrived, and the flames were having it all their own
way, pouring out with a fierce crackling from the windows of the
first-floor. The volume of red smoke, lit up by an occasional tongue of
flame, which filled the adjoining rooms, showed that it was rapidly
spreading. Very soon a bright ripple of flame runs along the ceilings,
the window curtains catch, the glass shivers into fragments at the fiery
touch, and the flames rush out with a roar of triumph. Now the men from
the colleges near, from Caius and Trinity and Clare, are clustering in,
together with a few of the townspeople. Presently the engines come
lumbering up, and the handles are seized by eager volunteers. But there
is no water at hand, and the hose are not long enough to reach to the
river behind. So long lines of men are formed down to the waterside, who
pass the buckets along from hand to hand, and in a few minutes the
engines begin to work. By this time the fire has got a firm hold of the
part attacked, and the upper stories are one sheet of flame. Dainty food
do the old colleges, with their rickety wooden staircases and wainscoted
rooms, dry and inflammable as so much tinder, offer to the hungry fire.
At last the engines are in full play, and work at a speed at which
engines have seldom worked before. Most of those at the handles are
boating-men, who have been for weeks in some sort of training. Beneath
their powerful arms the cranks work up and down, with a rapid stroke,
very unlike the usual monotonous clank of a fire-engine. The men
encourage each other with cheering shouts and boating cries of “Now
then, all together!” “Now she moves!” and the jets of water dash eagerly
in at the blazing windows. But the fire still spreads. The roof falls
in. The flames mount up more fiercely and brightly than before, with
vast volumes of glowing smoke, and myriads of fiery sparks. Day is
dawning, and the crowded court presents a strange sight as the grey
morning light breaks on the red flashing of the fire. Some of the men
are in pea-jackets with boating-caps of every colour, others are in
their caps and gowns. Here a party is working its engine with untiring
vigour, there another group is impatiently awaiting fresh supplies of
water; long lines of men are passing the buckets to and from the river.
Sober dons are as busy and excited as any; a few are directing the
operations, the rest are hard at work among the undergraduates. In spite
of their exertions the fire still spreads. All are anxious; for if the
flames extend to the adjoining wing of the court, Trinity, which is only
separated by a narrow lane, is certain to catch fire. These old places
are terribly inflammable. Some of the dons therefore get upon the roof,
Crockford of Caius most active among them, and direct the hose of the
engines; not unfrequently in their haste and inexperience deluging
themselves and each other with water, to the amusement of the
undergraduates below. No attempt is now made to extinguish the fire in
the part it has already seized upon, every effort being directed to
prevent it from spreading. Several times the flames break into the
adjoining rooms, but the dons with the hose, on ladders at the windows,
stand their ground and beat them back. All this time the college
servants are moving about with cans of beer among the men at work; the
butteries of the colleges near are thrown open, and refreshments served
to all comers.
At last the efforts to check the flames are successful, and they spread
no farther. Another hour passes, and it is evident that all danger is
over. The flames only shoot up at intervals from the shell they have
destroyed. The gown then leave it to the firemen to pump upon the ruins,
and scatter to their homes to breakfast.
By the time that Frank Maynard had changed his things and was ready, a
friend who had been working next to him at the engine, and who had
agreed to come in to breakfast, arrived. Arthur Prescott was a man with
a short, thick-set figure, and a kindly face with a quaint,
old-fashioned expression—one of those faces which, on a boy’s shoulders,
looks like that of an old man, but which never alters, and in old age
looks younger than it had ever done before.
Arthur Prescott—he had been always called Old Prescott at school, and
his intimate friends never spoke of him as anything else even now—was a
general favourite. No one was ever heard to say a bad word of him. He
was one of those men in whom all around him seem instinctively to
confide, and to make a depositary of secrets which they would never
relate to anyone else; a straightforward, sensible, true-hearted English
gentleman.
Prescott and Maynard had been great friends when boys together at
Westminster; and, indeed, it was principally the fact of the former’s
coming to Caius which had induced Frank to choose that college in
preference to any other.
Maynard greeted his arrival with, “That’s right, Prescott, you’re just
in time to help me; there is the gridiron, put the steak on while I see
about the coffee.”
For some time there was little conversation. Prescott was fully occupied
with his culinary charge, and Maynard in the preparation of the coffee;
the apparatus being one of those beautifully-scientific inventions,
which, while they produce no doubt an excellent result, demand incessant
attention, and are liable, in the event of the least thing going wrong,
to explode with disastrous consequences. At last all was ready, and they
sat down to breakfast. They had scarcely begun when a new-comer entered.
“I thought I should find you at breakfast, Maynard. Give me some, like a
good fellow. My fire is gone out, and I can’t find either my gyp or
bed-maker, although I’ve been shouting from the window till I am as
hoarse as a raven. What are you eating? Steak, and mighty nicely done
too.”
Their hunger once somewhat appeased, they began to talk over the events
of the past night, and of the boat supper.
“Do you know, Frank,” Teddy Drake said, after a pause, “that cousin of
yours—Bingham—becomes more unpleasant every day. I thought last night
there would have been a row half-a-dozen times. He is the most
insufferable little beggar I ever came across.”
Frank laughed. “Bingham does make himself disagreeable, Drake, I quite
allow; but it is really all manner, he is not a bad fellow.”
“I only go by what I see and hear, Frank, and I call him a cantankerous
little vermin.”
“It is all outside, Drake; he is a good-hearted fellow in the main.”
“I don’t think it, Frank. I tell you he is a chip of the evil one.”
“Without going as far as Drake,” Prescott said, smiling, “I confess,
Frank, that I don’t like Bingham. It is not that he is disagreeable,
although he certainly is that, but that I feel instinctively repelled by
him. Frankly, Maynard, he gives me the impression of being bad hearted.
He is essentially a man I could not trust.”
“Oh come, Prescott,” Frank said, warmly, “that is not like you. I have
known Fred for many years, and I believe him to be a very
straightforward fellow. Disagreeable and cantankerous if you like, but a
good fellow in the main. In his way he reminds me, although he is as
straight as an arrow, of deformed people. They are generally
kind-hearted, but they are often extremely sensitive. They imagine all
sorts of slights where none are intended, and are not unfrequently very
bitter in their remarks on those to whom nature has been more bountiful
than to themselves. So with Fred; I am sure he feels it very much that
he looks a mere boy, and it makes him irritable and snappish.”
“I have no doubt there is a good deal in what you say, Frank; but I
confess that somehow or other I distrust as much as I dislike him.”
“He’s a chip of the evil one,” Teddy Drake muttered to himself, “and
there are no two ways about it.”
“Now, Drake,” Frank said, “help me to push the table back, and let’s
have a pipe. Another fortnight and we shall be going down; now the races
are over I shall be glad to be away.”
“I am going to stop up and read,” Teddy Drake said, disconsolately. “My
coach says that I never open a book when the men are up, and that my
only chance is in the vacations, when there is nothing to do. I am
afraid he’s about right; and I’ve made up my mind to stick to it. I
shall run up to town and see the ‘’Varsity,’ of course, but that’s all
the holidays I mean to take.”
“Look here, Drake,” Frank said; “the best thing you can do is to come
and stay for the week with me. My guardian is a capital old fellow, and
there’s lots of room in the house.”
“I should like it of all things, Frank; but does he object to smoke,
because I couldn’t do without that?”
“He wouldn’t like it in the breakfast-room,” Frank laughed; “but he
smokes himself in his study, and I have a special smoking-room
upstairs.”
“In that case, Frank, I shall be delighted. That guardian of yours must
be a trump. I wish my father saw things in the same reasonable light.
He’s always down upon me about smoking; but I am afraid he will never
cure me of it.”
“I am afraid not, Teddy. Well, you can smoke as much as you like while
you are with us.”