Clement was ready to start forward, under the impression that Lance was talking his 'nonsense;' but the Bishop said, 'You were named, but nobody believed it for a moment.'
'One of our little fellows was very ill, my Lord,' said Lance, excitement restoring something of his natural briskness. 'We thought he was going to have the cholera, and I went to get something for him. The chemists' shops were shut, so I went in there.'
'May I ask the question,' said the Bishop, rather as if taking a liberty, 'why did you not call up Mr. Stokes?'
'We couldn't, my Lord, for it was all Mr. Shapcote's swans' eggs. He caught them—three of our least fellows, I mean—jumping at the branches that hung over the river wall, and he blackguar—abused them so that they got into a rage and vowed he shouldn't have a plum left on the tree. We seniors knew nothing about it; but they got over the wall at dark, and one ate eighty-five and the other eighty-one; but, little Dick—one of them, I mean—could only get down nineteen, and brought the rest in his pockets. It was the first time such a thing had happened, and it put me in a proper rage. The little one was the one I found out first; and I thought he was sulky, so I licked him till he howled, so that I was afraid I'd done him some dreadful harm, like a regular brute; and when I found it was his inside instead of his outside, I was so glad, I could have done anything for him. But we couldn't call Stokes, or the poor little chap would have suffered for it three times over.'
'That would have been hard measure! And did your remedy succeed?'
'Yes; I think a good deal was fright. He went to sleep on the brandy, and was all right next day.'
'And the gentlemen with the eighty-five and eighty-one suffered no inconvenience, of course?' said his Lordship, much amused. 'May I hear how you got out?'
'With Mr. Harewood's key,' said Lance. 'He used to keep it on a nail inside the study door, which opens into the passage leading into this court, and is never locked.'
'That is the key of the Cathedral library.'
'Yes, my lord; it unlocks the outer door, and the door into the north transept.'