Chapter Thirty Five.
A vocal, instrumental, and dramatic Entertainment in the Fourth Junior.
Now among those who were present to witness the famous “rush-up” of Greenfield senior and Wraysford, which ended in the fall of the County goal, was one boy who showed very little enthusiasm over the achievement, or very little delight at the glory which the school thereby derived.
Loman, who, unable to sit in his study, and not knowing what else to do, had wandered almost instinctively to the meadow, found himself on this particular afternoon one of the most miserable boys in Saint Dominic’s.
Two years ago, when he first entered the school, he was popular with his fellows and voted an acquisition on the cricket-ground and football-field whenever the youth of Saint Dominic’s strove in emulation against their rivals. He could remember a time when fellows strolled arm-in-arm with him down to the matches; when the small boys looked quite meek in his presence, and the masters gave a friendly nod in answer to his salutes. That was when he was quite new at Saint Dominic’s; but how changed now! This afternoon, for instance, as he stood looking on, he had the cheerful knowledge that not a boy in all that assembly cared two straws about him. Why wasn’t he playing in the match? Why did the fellows, as they came near him, look straight in front of them, or go round to avoid him? Why did the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles strut about and crack their vulgar jokes right under his very nose, as if he was nobody? Alas, Loman! something’s been wrong with you for the last year or thereabouts; and if we don’t all know the cause, we can see the effect. For it is a fact, you are nobody in the eyes of Saint Dominic’s at the present time.
However, he was destined to become a somebody pretty soon; and, indeed, as soon as the football match was over, and the supper after it was disposed of, and the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles (who, you know, had selected this same afternoon for their great football match) had ceased their rows in slumber, every one’s mind, at least the mind of every one in the two head forms, turned naturally to the strange and mysterious event of the morning. What various conclusions they came to it is not for me to set down here. They probably came to as good a conclusion as the reader has done, and waited impatiently to have the whole thing cleared up.
And it looked as if the Doctor were about to do this next morning, for he summoned together the Fifth and Sixth, and thus solemnly addressed them:—
“Before we begin the lesson for the day, boys, I wish to refer to an incident that happened here yesterday morning, which must be fresh in your memories. I mean the accidental discovery of the lost examination paper for the Nightingale Scholarship. I hope you will not draw hasty conclusions from what then occurred. The boy in whose book the paper was found is present here, and has assured me on his honour he never saw the paper before, and is quite ignorant how it came into his book. That is so, Loman?”