“Oh, sir,” said Ambrose, “we thought it was you,” and he pointed to Stockley. There was love in the tone, making Mr. Shalford treasure the simple words for many a day.
“Why?”
“That stupid Smithers said so. I think he was too frightened to know what he was saying.”
The moving of Stockley restored him to a state of semi-consciousness, in which he talked incoherently. One arm hung loosely, evidently broken above the elbow. When touched in the ribs the suffering boy groaned aloud, so that it was quite probable that some were fractured. There was a cut on the forehead, and another on the lower lip. The injuries, as far as could be then learned, while serious, were not necessarily fatal.
A priest from the college having arrived, the rest withdrew some paces while the minister of God tried to elicit some act of conscious sorrow for sin. It seemed to the boys that he succeeded, for from the distance they saw him raise his hand and make the sign of the cross as in sacramental absolution.
“I do not think he will die,” said the priest as the others drew near. “See there, that is what must have done the mischief. He was caught up here in the wind-storm, and one of those dead limbs struck him. You say you found him beneath the tops of
the fallen oak. Those twigs could not have inflicted these injuries.”
Intermittently Stockley muttered incoherent words. Bracebridge and Beecham knelt on either side of him, nervously anxious to catch every sound. Unknown to each other, both had simultaneously formed a strange suspicion. Once both distinctly heard the words: “Clear—Henning.” What could that mean? They caught the word “letter,” but to neither did this convey intelligence, because neither knew of the existence of the copy or draft of that letter which Roy Henning had written to some unknown friend. They heard other disconnected words, for instance, "sweater,” and “Garrett,” but these words had no meaning for them. They did not, for all that, lose a single word, but stored up everything in their memories, being sure that something would come of it in good time.
Harry Gill and others arrived with a wire mattress, the best temporary substitute for a stretcher. There was no lack of willing hands to convey the injured boy down the hill to the infirmary.
Gill's report of Smithers' frantic words spread like wildfire in the yard. Most of the boys believed the kindly prefect had been killed by a falling tree. Few had seen him after the report began, because he had at once started for the walk.