“Halt!” said Channing. “Pierce senior, take your place.”
“I shan’t,” returned Pierce. “Who is to compel me?” he added with a mocking laugh. “We are without a senior for once.”
“I will,” thundered Tom, his face turning white at the implied sneer, the incipient disobedience. “I stand here as the school’s senior now, whatever I may do later, and I will be obeyed. Return to your proper place.”
There was that in Tom’s eye, in Tom’s tone, that somehow over-awed Mr. Pierce; and he walked sheepishly to his own place. There was no mistaking that Channing would make a firm senior. The boys proceeded, two and two, decorously through the cloisters, snatching off their trenchers as they entered the college gates. Tom and Huntley walked last, Tom bearing the keys. The choir gained, the two branched off right and left, Huntley placing himself at the head of the boys on the left, or cantori side; Tom, assuming his place as acting senior, on the decani. When they should sit next in that cathedral would their posts be reversed?
The dean was present: also three canons—Dr. Burrows, who was subdean, Dr. Gardner, and Mr. Mence. The head-master chanted, and in the stall next to him sat Gaunt. Gaunt had discarded his surplice with his schoolboy life; but curiosity with regard to the seniorship brought him amongst them again that day. “I hope you’ll keep the place, Channing,” he whispered to him, as he passed the boys to get to his stall. Arthur Channing was at his place at the organ.
Ere eleven o’clock struck, service was over, and the boys marched back again. Not to the schoolroom—into the chapter-house. The examination, which took place once in three years, was there held. It was conducted quite in a formal manner; Mr. Galloway, as chapter clerk, being present, to call over the roll. The dean, the three prebendaries who had been at service, the head and other masters of the school, all stood together in the chapter-house; and the king’s scholars wearing their surplices still, were ranged in a circle before them.
The dean took the examination. Dr. Burrows asked a question now and then, but the dean chiefly took it. There is neither space nor time to follow it in detail here: and no one would care to read it, if it were given. As a whole, the school acquitted itself well, doing credit to its masters. One of the chapter—it was Dr. Gardner, and the only word he spoke throughout—remarked that the head boy was a sound scholar, meaning Tom Channing.
The business over, the dean’s words of commendation spoken, then the head-master took a step forward and cleared his throat. He addressed himself to the boys exclusively; for, what he had to say, had reference to them and himself alone: it was supposed not to concern the clergy. As to the boys, those who were of an excitable temperament, looked quite pale with suspense, now the long-expected moment was come. Channing? Huntley? Yorke?—which of the three would it be?
“The praise bestowed upon you, gentlemen, by the Dean and Chapter has been, if possible, more gratifying to myself than to you. It would be superfluous in me to add a word to the admonition given you by the Very Reverend the Dean, as to your future conduct and scholarly improvement. I can only hope, with him, that they may continue to be such as to afford satisfaction to myself, and to those gentlemen who are associated with me as masters in the collegiate school.”
A pause and a dead silence. The head-master cleared his throat again, and went on.