Orville College: A Story

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Rather to the consternation of the first desk, though perhaps not very much to their surprise, Mr. Long brought a charge against them—that they had been smoking. It was the morning following Gall's holiday; and Mr. Long waylaid three or four of the seniors as they were filing into the school-hall after chapel. Gall of course knew nothing of it. His nose had been greeted with an unusual scent on his entering the chamber the previous night, when the boys were all in bed and asleep, but he was wise enough never to take cognizance of things that did not fall under his immediate observation. Mr. Long addressed himself to civil Trace.

"Trace, I charge you, speak the truth. Were you smoking?"

"No, Mr. Long, I was not. I never smoke."

"I can't smoke, sir," put in Brown major eagerly. "Smoking wouldn't agree with me."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Long, but I think whoever has carried this story to you, might have been better occupied in minding his own business," observed Loftus, boldly. "I wonder you take notice of tales brought by a rat."

Mr. Long flushed a little, but was not to be put down. He awarded every one that slept in the senior room, except Gall and Trace, a severe punishment: lessons to do out of hours. Gall, from his absence, could not have been in the affair, and the denial of Trace was believed. If Lamb was the sneak of the school, Trace was the Pharisee, and considered by the masters accordingly. But that Mr. Long was conscious of feeling rather small himself on the subject of listening to "a rat"—whom he took to mean Lamb—he might have laid the offence before the Head Master: as it was, he dealt with it himself. There was much dissatisfaction rife at the first desk that day.

Had a very angel from heaven come down to tell them the informant was not Mr. Henry, they had scarcely listened. He was their rat. Even Loftus and Irby, the two who had been inclined to like the German master, turned against him. Gall also, in his private thoughts, considered it a gratuitous interference.

"I told you I knew the fellow was a spy," cried Trace, speaking vehemently in his condemning resentment.

A spy from henceforth, in their estimation, and to be looked upon as such: one who would have the whole school armed against him.

But now, the informant was not Mr. Henry—as I daresay you have divined: the real one was Lamb. When Brown minor carried back the news to his chamber of what he had seen, Lamb, who slept there, treasured it up, and whispered it to Mr. Long the first thing in the morning. Not a single boy, save himself, would have told. The whole lot of juniors, from the second desk downwards, would have scorned it: they were too fond of escapades themselves, to tell of the seniors; not to speak of the hidings—to use their own language—they would have been treated to in private. In this instance Lamb was not suspected, the suspicion having fixed itself on Mr. Henry.