"Van Brummel, you'll do," continued Mr. Wilberforce. "Go and inquire of the bedesmen whether they have received orders; and, if so, from whom: and whether it is really Arkell that the bell is tolling for."
Van Brummel opened the door and clattered down the stairs, as Lewis junior had done; and he clattered back again.
"The men say, sir, that the dean sent them the orders by his servant. And they think Arkell is to be buried in the cathedral."
"In—deed!" was the master's comment, in a tone of doubt. "Poor fellow!" he added, after a pause, "his has been a sudden and melancholy ending. Boys, if you want to do well, you should imitate Henry Arkell. I can tell you that the best boy who ever trod these boards, as a foundation scholar, has now gone from among us."
"Please, sir, I'm senior of the choir now," interposed Aultane junior, as if fearing the master might not sufficiently remember that important fact.
"And a fine senior you'll make," scornfully retorted Mr. Wilberforce.
It was Mr. St. John who had taken the news of his death to the dean, and the latter immediately sent to order the bell to be tolled. St. John left the deanery, and was passing through the cloisters on his way to Hall-street, when he saw in the distance Mrs. and Miss Beauclerc, just as the cathedral bell rang out. Mrs. Beauclerc was startled, as the head master had been: her fears flew towards her aristocratic clergy friends. She tried the college door, and, finding it open, entered to make inquiries of the bedesmen. Georgina stopped to chatter to Mr. St. John.
"Fancy, if it should be old Ferraday gone off!" cried she. "Won't the boys crow? He has got the influenza, and was sitting by his study fire yesterday in a flannel nightcap."
"It is the death-bell for Henry Arkell, Georgina."
A vivid emotion dyed her face. She was vexed that it should be apparent to Mr. St. John, and would have carried it off under an assumption of indifference.