At the school-gates Tom made a dead pause; there was not a soul in the
quadrangle—all was lonely, and silent, and sad. So with another effort
he strode through the quadrangle, and into the school-house offices.
He found the little matron in her room in deep mourning; shook her
hand, tried to talk, and moved nervously about; she was evidently
thinking of the same subject as he, but he couldn’t begin talking.
“Where shall I find Thomas?” said he at last, getting desperate.
“In the servants’ hall, I think, sir. But won’t you take anything?”
said the matron looking rather disappointed.
“No, thank you,” said he, and strode off again to find the old verger,
who was sitting in his little den as of old puzzling over hieroglyphics.
He looked up through his spectacles, as Tom seized his hand and wrung
it.
“Ah! you’ve heard all about it, sir, I see,” said he.
Tom nodded, and then sat down on the shoe-board, while the old man told
his tale, and wiped his spectacles, and fairly flowed over with quaint,
homely, honest sorrow.
By the time he had done, Tom felt much better.
“Where is he buried, Thomas?” said he at last.
“Under the altar in the chapel, sir,” answered Thomas. “You’d like to
have the key, I dare say.”
“Thank you, Thomas. Yes, I should very much.” And the old man fumbled
among his bunch, and then got up as though he would go with him; but
after a few steps stopped short and said, “Perhaps you’d like to go by
yourself, sir?”
Tom nodded, and the bunch of keys were handed to him with an injunction
to be sure and lock the door after him, and bring them back before
eight o’clock.
We walked quickly through the quadrangle and out into the close. The
longing which had been upon him and driven him thus far, like the
gad-fly in the Greek legends, giving him no rest in mind or body,
seemed all of a sudden not to be satisfied, but to shrivel up, and
pall. “Why should I go on? It is no use,” he thought, and threw himself
at full length on the turf, and looked vaguely and listlessly at all
the well-known objects. There were a few of the town-boys playing
cricket, their wicket pitched on the best piece in the middle of the
big-side ground, a sin about equal to sacrilege in the eyes of a
captain of the eleven. He was very nearly getting up to go and send
them off. “Pshaw! they won’t remember me. They’ve more right there than
I,” he muttered. And the thought that his sceptre had departed, and his
mark was wearing out, came home to him for the first time, and bitterly
enough. He was lying on the very spot where the fights came off;
where he himself had fought six years ago his first and last battle.
He conjured up the scene till he could almost hear the shouts of the
ring, and East’s whisper in his ear; and looking across the close to
the Doctor’s private door, half-expected to see it open, and the tall
figure in cap and gown come striding under the elm-trees towards him.
No, no! that sight could never be seen again. There was no flag flying
on the round tower; the school-house windows were all shuttered up; and
when the flag went up again, and the shutters came down, it would be
to welcome a stranger. All that was left on earth of him whom he had
honored, was lying cold and still under the chapel-floor. He would go
in and see the place once more, and then leave it once for all. New men
and new methods might do for other people; let those who would, worship
the rising star; he at least would be faithful to the sun which had
set. And so he got up, and walked to the chapel-door and unlocked it,
fancying himself the only mourner in all the broad land, and feeding on
his own selfish sorrow.
He passed through the vestibule, and then paused for a moment to glance
over the empty benches. His heart was still proud and high, and he
walked up to the seat which he had last occupied as a sixth-form boy,
and sat himself down there to collect his thoughts.
And, truth to tell, they needed collecting and setting in order not a
little. The memories of eight years were all dancing through his brain,
and carrying him about whither they would; while, beneath them all,
his heart was throbbing with the dull sense of a loss that could never
be made up to him. The rays of the evening sun came solemnly through
the painted windows above his head, and fell in gorgeous colors on the
opposite wall, and the perfect stillness soothed his spirit by little
and little. And he turned to the pulpit, and looked at it, and then,
leaning forward with his head on his hands, groaned aloud:
“If he could only have seen the Doctor again for one five minutes—have
told him all that was in his heart, what he owed to him, how he loved
and reverenced him, and would by God’s help follow his steps in life
and death—he could have borne it all without a murmur. But that he
should have gone away for ever without knowing it all, was too much
to bear.”—“But am I sure he does not know it all?”—the thought made
him start—“May he not even now be near me, in this very chapel? If he
be, am I sorrowing as he would have me sorrow—as I should wish to have
sorrowed when I shall meet him again?”
He raised himself up and looked around; and after a minute rose and
walked humbly down to the lowest bench, and sat down on the very seat
which he had occupied on his first Sunday at Rugby. And then the old
memories rushed back again, but softened and subdued, and soothing
him as he let himself be carried away by them. And he looked up at
the great painted window above the altar, and remembered how when a
little boy he used to try not to look through it at the elm-trees and
the rocks, before the painted glass came—and the subscription for the
painted glass, and the letter he wrote home for money to give to it.
And there, down below, was the very name of the boy who sat on his
right hand on that first day, scratched rudely in the oak paneling.
And then came the thought of all his own school-fellows; and form after
form of boys nobler, and braver, and purer than he, rose up and seemed
to rebuke him. Could he not think of them, and what they had felt and
were feeling, they who had honored and loved from the first, the man
whom he had taken years to know and love? Could he not think of those
yet dearer to him who was gone, who bore his name and shared his blood,
and were now without a husband or a father? Then the grief which he
began to share with others became gentle and holy, and he rose up once
more, and walked up the steps to the altar; and while the tears flowed
freely down his cheeks, knelt down humbly and hopefully, to lay down
there his share of a burden which had proved itself too heavy for him
to bear in his own strength.