“Because our progress is so equal that I don’t think one will get ahead of another, so that the choice cannot be made that way; and Channing’s name stands first on the rolls.”
“Who is to know if they’ll give us fair play and no humbug?’ said Tom Channing.
“If they do, it will be what they have never given yet!” exclaimed Stephen Bywater. “Kissing goes by favour.”
“Ah, but I heard that the dean—”
At this moment a boy dashed into the throng, scattering it right and left. “Where are your eyes?” he whispered.
Close upon them was the dean. Arm in arm with him, in his hat and apron, walked the Bishop of Helstonleigh. The boys stood aside and took off their trenchers. The dean merely raised his hand in response to the salutation—he appeared to be deep in thought; but the bishop nodded freely among them.
“I heard that the dean found fault, the last time the exhibition fell, and said favour should never be shown again, so long as he was Dean of Helstonleigh,” said Harry Huntley, when the clergy were beyond hearing, continuing the sentence he had been interrupted in. “I say that, with fair play, it will be Channing’s; failing Channing, it will be mine; failing me, it will be Yorke’s.”
“Now, then!” retorted Gerald Yorke. “Why should you have the chance before me, pray?”
Huntley laughed. “Only that my name heads yours on the rolls.”
Once in three years there fell an exhibition for Helstonleigh College school, to send a boy to Oxford. It would be due the following Easter. Gaunt declined to compete for it; he would leave the school at Michaelmas; and it was a pretty generally understood thing that whichever of the three mentioned boys should be appointed senior in his place, would be presented with the exhibition. Channing and Yorke most ardently desired to gain it; both of them from the same motive—want of funds at home to take them to the university. If Tom Channing did not gain it, he was making up his mind to pocket pride, and go as a servitor. Yorke would not have done such a thing for the world; all the proud Yorke blood would be up in arms, at one of their name appearing as a servitor at Oxford. No. If Gerald Yorke should lose the exhibition, Lady Augusta must manage to screw out funds to send him. He and Tom Channing were alike designed for the Church. Harry Huntley had no such need: the son of a gentleman of good property, the exhibition was of little moment to him, in a pecuniary point of view; indeed, a doubt had been whispered amongst the boys, whether Mr. Huntley would allow Harry to take advantage of it, if he did gain it, for he was a liberal-minded and just man. Harry, of course, desired to be the successful one, for fame’s sake, just as ardently as did Channing and Yorke.