_ CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT. GOOD-BYE TO SAINT DOMINIC'S
And now, reader, we are at the end of our story, and there only remain the usual "last words" before we say good-bye.
Saint Dominic's flourishes still, and only last season beat the County by five wickets! The captain on that occasion was a fellow called Stephen Greenfield, who carried his bat for forty-eight in the first innings. He is a big fellow, is the captain, and has got a moustache. Though he is the oldest boy at Saint Dominic's, every one talks of him as "Greenfield junior." He is vastly popular, and fellows say there never was such a good Sixth at the school since the days of his brother, Greenfield senior, five years ago. The captain is an object of special awe among the youngsters of the Fourth Junior, who positively quake in their shoes whenever his manly form appears in the upper corridor.
These youngsters, by the way, are still the liveliest section of Saint Dominic's. The names Guinea-pig and Tadpole have died out, and left behind them only the Buttercups and Daisies, who, however, are as fierce rivals and as inky scamps as even their predecessors were. There is a lout of a fellow in the Fourth Senior called Bramble, who is extremely "down" on these juveniles, always snubbing them, and, along with one Badger, a friend of his, plotting to get them into trouble. But somehow they are not much afraid of Bramble, whereat Bramble is particularly furious, and summons Padger to a "meeting" about once a week in his study, there to take counsel against these irreverent Buttercups and Daisies.
About the only other fellow the reader will recollect is Paul, now in the Sixth, a steady-going sort of fellow, who, by the way, has just won the Nightingale Scholarship, greatly to the delight of his particular friend the captain.
Last year the Fifth tried to revive an old institution of their Form, in the shape of a newspaper entitled the _Dominican_, directed chiefly against the members of the Sixth. But somehow the undertaking did not come off. The _Dominican_ was a very mild affair for one thing, and there was nothing amusing about it for another thing, and there was a good deal offensive about it for another thing; and for another thing, the captain ordered it to be taken down off the wall on the first day of its appearance, and announced that if he had any more of this nonsense he would thrash one or two whose names he mentioned, and knock one or two others out of the first eleven.
The _Dominican_ has not appeared since.
The big cricket match against the County I spoke of just now was a famous event for more reasons than one. The chief reason, of course, was the glorious victory of the old school; but another reason, almost as notable, was the strange muster of old boys who turned up to witness the exploits of the "youngsters."
There was Tom Braddy, for instance, smoking a big cigar the size of a pencil-case, looking the picture of a snob. And with him a vacant-looking young man with a great crop of whiskers on his puffy cheeks. His name was Simon. The great idea of these two worthies seemed to be to do the grand before their posterity. They were convinced in their own minds that in this they were completely successful, but no one else saw it.
Boys took a good deal more interest in a lame gentleman present, who was cracking jokes with everybody, and hobbling about from one old crony to another in a manner that was perfectly frisky. Every one seemed to like Mr Pembury, and not a _few_ to be afraid of him. Perhaps that was because he was the editor of a well-known paper of the day, and every one likes to be on good terms with an editor.
Then there were a batch of fellows whose names we need hardly enumerate, who had run over from Oxford, or Cambridge, or London for the day, and who got into clusters between the innings and talked and laughed a great deal over old times, when "Bully did this," and "Rick did that," and so on. A nice lot of fellows they looked on the whole, and one or two, so people said, were doing well.
But among these _the_ lions of the day were two friends who strolled about arm-in-arm, and appeared far more at home in Saint Dominic's even than the boys themselves. One of them was the big brother of the captain--a terrible fellow by all accounts. He rowed in the boat of his 'Varsity the last year he was at Cambridge, and since then he has been called to the bar, and no one knows what else! People say Oliver Greenfield is a rising man; if so, we may hear of him again. At any rate in the eyes of the admiring youngsters of Saint Dominic's he was a great man already.
So was his friend Wraysford, a fellow of his college, and a "coach" for industrious undergraduates. He does not look like a tutor, certainly, to judge by his jovial face and the capers he persisted in cutting with some of his old comrades of years ago. But he is one, and Saint Dominic's Junior eyed him askance shyly, and thought him rather more learned and formidable a person than the old Doctor himself.
No one enjoyed themselves on that day more than these two, who prowled about and visited every nook and cranny of the old place--studies, passages, class-rooms, Fourth Junior and all.
The match is over, the jubilations of victory have subsided, and one by one the visitors depart. Among the last to leave are Oliver and Wraysford; they have stayed to dine with the Doctor, and when at last they do turn their backs on the old school it is getting late.
Stephen accompanies them down to the station. On the way they pass the well-known Cockchafer. The old board is still there, but a new name is upon it.
"Hullo! what's become of Cripps?" asked Wraysford.
"Oh! he's gone," said Stephen. "Didn't you know?"
"No! When was that?"
"The very time you and Noll went up to Cambridge. The magistrates took away his licence for allowing gambling to go on at his house. He stuck on at the lock-house for some time, and then disappeared suddenly. They said he was wanted for some bit of swindling or other. Anyhow, he's gone."
"And a very good riddance too," says Oliver.
"So it is," replies Stephen. "By the way, Noll, what's the last news of Loman?"
"Oh, I meant to tell you. He's coming home; I had a letter from him a week or two ago. He says the four or five years' farming and knocking about in Australia have pulled him together quite; you know how ill he was when he went out?"
"So he was," says Wraysford.
"He's coming home to be near his father and mother. He's been reading law, he says, out in the backwoods, and means to go into his father's office."
"I'm glad he's coming home," says Wraysford. "Poor fellow! I wonder when he'll come to this old place again."
A silence follows, and Oliver says, "When he does, I tell you what: we must all make up a jolly party and come down together and help him through with it."
"Well, old man!" said Stephen, taking his brother's arm, "if it hadn't been for you, he--"
"Hullo, I say! there's the train coming!" breaks out Oliver. "Look alive, you fellows, or we shall be late!"
[THE END]
[Talbot Baines Reed's Novel: Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's: A School Story] _