St. Winifred's Part 23

"Nothing that is fair can stay But while Death's sharp scythe is sweeping, We remember 'mid our weeping, That a Father-hand is keeping Every vernal bloom that falleth underneath its chilly sway.

And though earthly flowers may perish There are buds His hand will cherish And the things unseen Eternal--these can never pa.s.s away; Where the angels shout Hosanna, Where the ground is dewed with manna, These remain and these await us in the homes of heaven for ay!"

The lines are in Walter's desk; and he values them all the more for the tears which have fallen on them, and blurred the neatness of the fine clear handwriting.

On the following Tuesday our boys saw the dead body of their friend.

The face of poor Daubeny looked singularly beautiful with the placid lines of death, as all innocent faces do. It was the first time they had seen a corpse; and as Walter touched the cold cheek, and placed a spray of evergreen in the rigid hand, he was almost overpowered with an awful sense of the sad sweet mystery of death.

"It is G.o.d who has taken him to Himself," said Mrs Daubeny, as she watched their emotion. "I shall not be parted from him long. He has left you each a remembrance of himself, dear boys, and you will value them, I know, for my poor child's sake, and for his widowed mother's thanks to those who loved him."

For each of them he had chosen, before he died, one of his most prized possessions. To Power he left his desk; to Henderson, his microscope; to Kenrick, a little gold pencil-case; and to Walter, a treasure which he deeply valued, a richly-bound Bible, in which he had left many memorials of the manner in which his days were spent; and in which he had marked many of the rules which were the standard of his life, and the words of hope which sustained his gentle and n.o.ble mind.

The next day he was buried; only the boys in his own house, and those who had known him best, followed him to the grave. They were standing in two lines along the court, and the plumed hea.r.s.e stood at the cottage door. Just at that moment the rest of the boys began to flock out of the school, for lessons were over. Each as he came out caught sight of the hea.r.s.e, the plumes waving and whispering in the sea-wind, and the double line of mourners; and each, on seeing it, stood where he was, in perfect silence. Their numbers increased each moment, till boys and masters alike were there; and all by the same sudden impulse stopped where they were standing when first they saw the hea.r.s.e, and stood still without a word. The scene was the more strangely impressive because it was accidental and spontaneous. Meanwhile, the coffin was carried downstairs, and placed in the hea.r.s.e, which moved off slowly across the court between the line of bareheaded and motionless mourners. It was thus that Daubeny left Saint Winifred's, and pa.s.sed under the Norman arch; and till he had pa.s.sed through, the boys stood fixed to their places, like a group of statues in the usually noisy court. He was buried in the churchyard under the tower of the grand old church. It was a lovely spot; the torrent murmured near it; the shadows of the great mountains fell upon it; and as you stood there in the sacred silence of that memory-haunted field, you heard far-off the solemn monotone of the everlasting sea. There they laid him, and the stream of life, checked for a moment, flashed on again with turbulent and sparkling waves. Ah me!--yet why should we sigh at the merciful provision, which causes that the very best of us, when we die, leaves but a slight and transient ripple on the waters, which a moment after flow on as smoothly as before?

Mrs Daubeny left Saint Winifred's that evening; her carriage looked strange with her son's boxes and other possessions piled up in it. Who would ever use that cricket-bat or those skates again? Power and Walter shook hands with her at the door as she was about to start; and just at the last moment, Henderson came running up with something, which he put on the carriage seat without a word. It was a bird-cage, containing a little favourite canary, which he and Daubeny had often fed.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

KENRICK'S HOME.

Yonder there lies the village and looks how quiet and small, And yet bubbles o'er like a city with gossip and scandal and spite.

Tennyson. _Maud_.

It was the last evening. The boys were all a.s.sembled in the great schoolroom to hear the result of the examination. The masters in their caps and gowns were seated round Dr Lane on a dais in the centre of the room; and every one was eager to know what places the boys had taken, and who would win the various form prizes. Dr Lane began from the bottom of the school, and at the _last_ boy in each form, so that the interest of the proceedings kept on culminating to the grand climax.

The first name that will interest us was Eden's, and both Walter and Power were watching anxiously to see where he would come out in his form. Power had been so kindly coaching him in his work that they expected him to be high; but it was as much to _his_ surprise as to their gratification, that his name was read out _third_. Jones and Harpour were, as was natural, last in their respective forms.

At length Dr Lane got to Walter's form. Last but one came Howard Tracy, who was listening with a fine superiority to the whole announcement. Anthony and Franklin were not far from him. Henderson expected himself to be about tenth; but the tenth name, the ninth, and the eighth, all were read, and he had not been mentioned; his heart was beating fast, and he almost fancied that there must have been some mistake; but no; Dr Lane read on.

"Seventh, Grey;

"Sixth, Mackworth;

"Fifth, Whalley;

"Fourth, Henderson;"

and Walter had hardly done patting him on the back, and congratulating him, when Dr Lane had read--

"Third, Manners;

"Second, Carlton;

"_First_"--the Doctor always read the word "first" with peculiar emphasis, and then brought out the name of the boy who had attained that distinction with great empress.e.m.e.nt--"_First, Evson_."

Whereupon it was Henderson's turn to pat him on the back, which he did very vigorously; and not only so, but in his enthusiasm began to clap--a demonstration which ran like wildfire through all the ranks of the boys, and before Dr Lane could raise his voice to secure silence--for approbation on those occasions in the great schoolroom was not at all _selon regle_--our young hero had received a regular ovation. For since the day on Appenfell, Walter had been the favourite of the school, and they were only too glad to follow Henderson in his irregular applause.

There was an intoxicating sweetness in this popularity. Could Walter help keenly enjoying the general regard which thus, defiant of rules, broke out in his honour into spontaneous acclamations?

Dr Lane's stern "Silence!" heard above the uproar, soon reduced the boys to order, and he proceeded with the list. Kenrick was read out first in his form, and Power, as a matter of course, again first in the second fifth, although in that form he was the youngest boy. Somers came out head of the school, by examination as well as by seniority of standing; and in his case, too, the impulse to cheer was too strong to be resisted. The head of the school was, however, tacitly excepted from the general rule, and Dr Lane only smiled while he listened to the clapping, which showed that Somers was regarded with esteem and honour by the boys, in spite of his cold manners and stern regime.

"Hurrah for the Sociable Grosbeaks!" said Henderson, as the boys streamed out of the room. "Why, we carry all before us! And only fancy me fourth! Why, I'm a magnificent swell, without ever having known it.

You look out, Master Walter, or I shall have a scrimmage with you for laurels."

"Good," said Walter. "Meanwhile, come and help me to pack up my laurels in my box. And then for home! Hurrah!"

And he began to sing the exquisite air of:

"Domum, domum, dulce domum, Dulce, dulce, dulce domum;"

in which Power and Henderson joined heartily; while Kenrick walked on in silence.

Next day the boys were scattered in every direction to their various homes. It need not be said that Walter pa.s.sed very happy holidays that Christmas time. Power came and spent a fortnight with him; and let every boy who has a cheerful and affectionate home imagine for himself how blithely their days pa.s.sed by. Power made himself a universal favourite, always unselfish, always merry, and throwing himself heartily into every amus.e.m.e.nt which the Evsons proposed. He and they were mutually sorry when the time came for them to part.

From Semlyn Lake, Walter's home, to Fuzby, Kenrick's home, the change is great indeed; yet I must take the reader there for a short time, before we return to the noisy and often troubled precincts of Saint Winifred's School.

Before Power came to stay with the Evsons, Walter, with his father's full permission, had written to ask Kenrick to join them at the same time, and this is the answer he got in reply--

"My Dear Walter,--I can't tell you how much your letter tempted me. I should so like to come; I would give _anything_ to come and see you.

To be with you and Power at such a place as Semlyn must be--O Walter, it almost makes me envious to think of you there. But I can't come, and I'll tell you frankly the reason. I can't afford, or rather I mean that my mother cannot afford, the necessary travelling expenses.

I look on you, Walter, as my best school friend, so I may as well say at once that we are _very, very_ poor. If I could even get to you by walking some of the way, and going third-cla.s.s the rest, I would jump at the chance, but--. Lucky fellow, _you_ know nothing of the _res angusta domi_.

"You must be amused at the name of this place, Fuzby-le-Mud. What charming prospects the name opens, does it not? I a.s.sure you the name fits the place exactly. My goodness! how I do hate the place. You'll ask why then we live here? Simply because we _must_. Some misanthropic relation left us the house we live in, which saves rent.

"Yet, if you were with me, I think I could be happy even here. I don't venture to ask you. First of all, we couldn't make you one-tenth part as comfortable as you are at home; secondly, there isn't the ghost of an amus.e.m.e.nt here, and if you came, you'd go back to Saint Winifred's with a fit of blue devils, as I always do; thirdly, the change from Semlyn to Fuzby-le-Mud would be like walking from the Elysian fields and the asphodel meadows, into mere _borboros_ as old Edwards would say. So I _don't_ ask you; and yet if you could come--why, the day would be marked with white in the dull calendar of--Your ever affectionate--

"Harry Kenrick."

As Fuzby lay nearly in the route to Saint Winifred's, Walter, grieved that his friend should be doomed to such dull holidays, determined, with Mr Evson's leave, to pay him a three-days' visit on his way to school.

Accordingly, towards the close of the holidays, after a hopeful, a joyous, and an affectionate farewell to all at home, he started for Fuzby, from which he was to accompany Kenrick back to school; a visit fraught, as it turned out, with evil consequences, and one which he never afterwards ceased to look back upon with regret.

The railroad, after leaving far behind the glorious hills of Semlyn, pa.s.ses through country flatter and more uninteresting at every mile, until it finds itself fairly committed to the fens. Nothing but dreary d.y.k.es, muddy and straight, guarded by the ghosts of suicidal pollards, and by rows of dreary and desolate mills, occur to break the blank grey monotony of the landscape. Walter was looking out of the window with curious eyes, and he was wondering what life in such conditions could be like, when the train uttered a despairing scream, and reached a station which the porter announced as Fuzby-le-Mud. Walter jumped down, and his hand was instantly seized by Kenrick with a warm and affectionate grasp.

"So you're really here, Walter. I can hardly believe it. I half repent having brought you to such a place; but I was _so_ dull."

"I shall enjoy it exceedingly, Ken, with you. Shall I give my portmanteau to some man to take up to the village?"

"O, no; here's a--well, I may as well call it a _cart_ at once--to take it up in. The curate lent it me, and he calls it a pony-carriage; but it is, you see, nothing more or less than a cart. I hope you won't be ashamed to ride in it."

"I should think not," said Walter gaily, mounting into the curious little oblong wooden vehicle.

"It isn't very far," said Kenrick, "and I daresay you don't know any one about here; so it won't matter."

"Pooh! Ken, as if I minded such nonsense." Indeed, Walter would not have thought twice about the conveyance, if Kenrick had not harped upon it so much, and seemed so much ashamed of it, and mortified at being obliged to use it. "Shall I drive?" asked Walter.

"Drive? Why, the pony is stone blind, and as scraggy as a scarecrow, so there's not much driving to be had out of him. Fancy if the aristocratic Power, or some other Saint Winifred's fellow saw us! Why, it would supply Henderson with jokes for six weeks," said Kenrick, getting up and touching the old pony with his whip. Both he and Walter were wholly unconscious that their equipage _had_ been seen, and contemptuously scrutinised by one of their schoolfellows. Unknown to Walter, Jones was in the train; and, after a long stare at the pony-chaise, had flung himself back in his seat to indulge in a long guffaw, and in antic.i.p.ating the malicious amus.e.m.e.nt he should feel in retailing at Saint Winifred's the description of Kenrick's horse and carriage. Petty malignity was a main feature of Jones's mind.

"That is Fuzby," said Kenrick laconically, pointing to a straggling village from which a few lights were beginning to glimmer; "and I wish it were buried twenty thousand fathoms under the sea."