Chapter Three.
Gone!
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.