Chapter Nineteen.
An old Fire re-kindled.
Saint Dominic’s reassembled after the holidays in an amiable frame of mind.
The Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles, as the Doctor had prophesied, had cooled down considerably in spirit during the period, and now returned quietly to work just as if the mighty “strike” had never existed. Stephen’s regular fights with Bramble recommenced the very first day, so that everything was quite like old times.
Oliver found that the Fifth, all but one or two, had quite forgotten their suspicions of his bravery which had spoiled the pleasure of his last term, and there seemed every prospect of his getting through this with less risk to his quick temper than before.
As for the Sixth, the Fifth had forgiven them all their offences, and would have been quite prepared, had it been allowed, to live in peace with their seniors, and forget all the dissensions of the Summer term. But it was not allowed, and an event which happened early in the term served to revive all the old animosities between the two head classes.
At Saint Dominic’s, for reasons best known to the all-wise beings who presided over its management, the principal examinations and “removes” of the year took place not, as in most schools, at the end of the Midsummer term, but at the beginning of the Autumn term, about Michaelmas; consequently now, with the examinations looming in the distance, everybody who had anything to hope for from hard work settled down to study like mad. Cricket was over for the year, and football had not begun. Except boating there was not much doing out of doors, and for that reason the season was favourable for work. Studies, which used to be bear-gardens now suddenly assumed an appearance of respectability and quiet. Books took the place of boxing-gloves, and pens of fencing-sticks. The disorderly idlers who had been in the habit of invading at will the quarters of the industrious were now given to understand they must “kick-up their heels” elsewhere. They might not want to grind, but others did.
The idlers of the Fifth, to whom this warning was addressed on every hand, had nothing for it but to obey, and, feeling themselves greatly ill-used, to retire sadly, to some spot where “they could kick-up a row to themselves.”
Casting about them for such a spot, it happened that Braddy and Ricketts one day lit almost by accident on an old empty study, which some years since had been a monitor’s room, but was now empty and tenantless.
It at once occurred to these two astute heroes that this would be a magnificent place for boxing-matches. In the other studies one was always banging against the corners of tables, or tripping over fenders, but here there was absolutely nothing, but four bare walls to interfere with anybody.