Orville College: A Story

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Mrs. Gall would not hear of his continuing the lesson. She made him lie on the sofa and rest. She and her children had grown to like him very much; which the senior boy, in his prejudice, silently shrugged his shoulders at. But there was something about him this afternoon, in his transitory helplessness, his gratitude for the care shown, that appealed to William Gall's better feelings and half won his heart. Mr. Henry could not rest long; he had a German lesson to give at five o'clock, and must go home first for the necessary books. When he went out, Gall went with him, and offered his arm.

"You will walk all the better for it, Mr. Henry. Years back I used to have fainting-fits myself, and know how they take the strength away."

Mr. Henry accepted it, and they walked on together. He had always liked Gall: never a better head and heart au fond than his. Leaning too readily, perhaps, to the prejudices of the school he partially swayed; but Mr. Henry allowed for that: others might have done it more offensively. Gall had never taken an active part in the cabal against young Paradyne, or in the contempt lavished on the German master; but he had tacitly acquiesced in it.

Some of the boys happened to be in the quadrangle; and, to describe the commotion when Gall passed arm-in-arm with the enemy—as Trace was in the private habit of calling Mr. Henry—would be beyond any pen. Gall, thoroughly independent always, vouchsafed a cool nod to the sea of astonished faces, and continued his way. If anything could have daunted him, it was the supercilious contempt on Bertie Loftus's handsome face: anything that Gall did was sure to excite that, for there was no good feeling between them. Bertie would have done the same thing himself for Mr. Henry, or for any one else in case of need; but he lost sight of that in his prejudice against Gall. Mr. Henry called for some coffee on going in: coffee was his panacea for most ailments.

"You'll stay and take a cup with me," he said cordially, to Gall. "I feel quite well now. It must have been the heat."

Mrs. Butter brought the coffee and some bread-and-butter, and the two chatted together. Gall had never seen so much of Mr. Henry in all the past months as in this one hour, and he felt ashamed for having turned the cold shoulder on him.

"I hope I shall see more of you, Mr. Henry, than I have seen hitherto," he said, when he was shaking hands to leave. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If there is, tell me. I hope you'll not have a renewal of this."

"Thank you," replied Mr. Henry, looking straight at him with his pleasant eyes. "I wish I could get you to alter one thing—the persecution of young Paradyne."

"Well, it is too bad," observed Gall. "But I can't make the school like Paradyne if they dislike him."

"Can you tell me why they dislike him?" pointedly asked Mr. Henry: for times and again it had struck him that the particulars of the Liverpool business must have been privately circulated by Trace or Loftus.