“Well, young gentlemen, what’s your pleasure?”
“Please can you tell us where the porter’s lodge is?” said Richardson, in his most persuasive tone.
“I can. I’m the porter, and this is the lodge. What do you want?”
“Please we’re Mr Ashford’s boys, come for the examination. Here’s a note from Mr Ashford for Dr Winter.”
The porter took the note, and bade the panic-stricken trio follow him across the quadrangle.
What a walk that was! Across that noble square, with its two great elm-trees laden with noisy rooks; with its wide-fenced lawn and sun-dial; with its cloisters and red brick houses; with its sculptures and Latin mottoes.
And even all these were as nothing to the few boys who loitered about in its enclosure—some pacing arm-in-arm, some hurrying with books under their arms, some diverting themselves more or less noisily, some shouting or whistling or singing—all at home in the place; and all unlike the three trembling victims who trotted in the wake of the porter towards the dreadful hall of examination.
At the door, Richardson felt a frantic clutch on his arm.
“Oh! I say, Dick,” gasped Coote, holding out a shaking ringer, with a legend on its nail, “whatever is this the date for—1476? I put it down, and— Oh! I say, can’t you remember?”
But Richardson, though he scorned to show it, was too agitated even to suggest an event to fit the disconsolate date, and poor Coote had to totter up the stairs, hopelessly convinced that he had nothing at his fingers’ ends after all.