CHAPTER XII.
MR. RICHARDS' MORNING CALL
Mr. Fauntleroy was seated at breakfast, when this missive reached him. His two strapping daughters were with him: buxom, vulgar damsels, attired this morning in Magenta skirts and straw-coloured jackets. Mrs. Fauntleroy had been some years dead, and they ruled the house, and nearly ruled the lawyer. Strong-willed man though he was, carrying things out of doors with an iron hand, and sometimes a coarse one, he would yield to domestic tyranny; as many another has to do, if it were but known. It was fond tyranny, however, here; for whatever may have been the faults of the Miss Fauntleroys, they loved their father with a tender love. They were the only children of the lawyer—his co-heiresses—and to him they were as the apple of his eye.
The room they sat in faced the garden—a large fine garden at the back of the house. The leaves were red with the glowing tints of autumn, and as Mr. Fauntleroy looked up from his well-covered breakfast-table at the October sky, he made some remark upon the famous run the hounds would make; and a half sigh escaped his lips that his own hunting days were gone for ever.
"Would you be afraid to ride now, pa?"
"Look at my weight, Lizzy."
"I think some who ride are as heavy as you," was Miss Elizabeth's answer.
"Ah! but they are used to it; they have kept the practice up. Never a better follower than I in my younger days—always in at the death—but that's a long while ago now. I gave up hunting when I settled down. What d'ye call that, Bab?"
He was pointing with his fork to a dish apart. Miss Barbara looked at it critically, and did not recognise it. "I dare say it's some dish the new cook has sent up. It looks nice, pa."
"Hand some of it over, then," said Mr. Fauntleroy.
She helped him plentifully. The lawyer and his daughters were all fond of nice dishes, and liked good servings of them; as perhaps their large frames and their high colours testified. Miss Lizzy pushed up her plate.
"I'll take some, too, Bab."
"About that pic-nic, pa? Are we–"
"Oh! I don't know," interrupted the lawyer, with his mouth full. "You girls are always bothering for something of the sort. Get it up if you like, only don't expect me to go."
"The Arkells will join us, pa; Bab has asked them."
"Of course," said the lawyer with a loud laugh. "She'd not fail to ask them. How was Mr. Travice, Bab?"
"I shan't tell you, pa," answered Miss Bab, tossing her head in demonstrative indignation, though her whole face beamed with a gratified smile. "The idea! How should I know anything about Mr. Travice Arkell!"
"A good-looking young fellow," said the lawyer, significantly. "Perhaps others may be finding him so as well as you, Bab."
"Pa, then, you are a stupid! And I want to know who it is that's coming to dinner to-day?"
"Coming to dinner to-day, Bab? Nobody that I know of."
"You said last night you had invited somebody, but you went to sleep when I asked who."
"Oh! I remember. I met him yesterday, and he said he was going to call to-day. I told him to come in and dine, if he liked. It's Ben Carr."
"Oh!" said Miss Bab, with a depreciating sniff. "Only Ben Carr!"
"He's over here for a few days, stopping with Mrs. Lewis. He wants to be off to Australia or some place, but the squire turns crusty about advancing the funds. Ben and he came to an explosion over it, and Ben has made himself scarce at home in consequence. What's the time, Bab?"
Barbara Fauntleroy glanced over her father's head at the French clock behind him. "It's twenty-five minutes after nine, pa."
"Eh!" cried the lawyer, starting up. "Why, what a time I have been at breakfast! You girls should not keep me with your chatter."
He gathered up his letters, which lay in a stack beside him, and hastened into his office. The head clerk, Kenneth, was in the outer room, with one of the other clerks, a young man named Omer. Mr. Fauntleroy went in to ask a question.
"Have those deeds come in yet from the engrosser's, Kenneth?"
"No, sir."
"Not come! Why they promised them for nine o'clock this morning, and now it's half-past. Go for them yourself, Kenneth, at once, and give them a word of a sort. It's not the first time by many that they've been behindhand."
Mr. Kenneth took his hat and went out; and his master shut himself in his private room and began to open his letters. Sometimes he opened his letters at breakfast time, at others he carried them, as now, into the office.
Amidst these letters was the envelope despatched by Mrs. Carr, containing the important letter found in the desk. To describe Mr. Fauntleroy's astonishment when he read it, would be beyond mortal pen. To think that they should have been looking half over the world for this marriage record, when it was lying quietly under their very nose!
"By George!" exclaimed Mr. Fauntleroy. "A clever trick, though, of Robert Carr's—if he did so marry her. The secret was well kept. He would be sure we should suspect any place rather than Westerbury." "Omer!" he called out aloud.
The clerk came in, in answer, and stood before the table of Mr. Fauntleroy.
"Go down to St. James the Less, and look through the register. See if there's a marriage entered between Robert Carr and—what was the girl's Christian name?—Martha Ann Hughes. Stop a minute, I'll give you the date of the year. And—Omer—keep a silent tongue in your head."
Mr. Fauntleroy nodded significantly, and his clerk went out, knowing what that mandate meant, and that it might not be disobeyed. He came back after a while and went in to Mr. Fauntleroy.
"Well?" said the latter, looking up eagerly.
"It is there, sir."
"By George!" repeated the lawyer. "Only to think of that! That's all, Omer," he added, after a pause. "Mr. Kenneth wants you. And mind what I charged you as to a silent tongue."
"No fear, sir," said Omer, as he retired. And to give him his due there was no fear. One clerk had been discharged from Mr. Fauntleroy's office six months before, some tattling having been traced back to him; but Omer was of a silent nature, and cautious besides.
"I shall never be surprised at anything again," soliloquized Mr. Fauntleroy. "A week longer, and I should have thrown up the cause, unless the Holland Carrs had come forward with money. Won't I go on with it now! But—I suppose—" he continued more slowly, and in due deliberation, "the cause will be at an end now. Old Carr can't hold out in the face of this. Shall I tell of it? If I don't—and they don't else come to know of it—and the cause goes on, there'll be a pretty picking for both sides; and old Carr can afford it, for it's his pocket that will have to stand costs now. I'm not obliged to tell them; and I won't," concluded Mr. Fauntleroy.
But this little cunning plan of secresy on the part of Mr. Fauntleroy was destined to be defeated. Mynn and Mynn, the solicitors of Eckford, were in negotiation with a gentleman in London to take the head of their office, and act as its chief during their own frequent absence. This gentleman, by one of those coincidences that arise in this world, to help our projects or baffle them, as the case may be, happened to be Mr. Littelby. The negotiation had been opened for some little time, and was only waiting for a personal interview for completion; Mr. Littelby himself being rather anxious for it, as it held out greater advantages than he enjoyed in his present post, one of which was a possible partnership. Mr. George Mynn made a journey to London to see him; and while he was gone, it chanced that the clerk, Richards, had occasion to see Mr. Fauntleroy.
He, Richards, arrived in Westerbury betimes on this same morning, and was told by Kenneth that he might go in to Mr. Fauntleroy. Richards found, however, that the room was empty; Mr. Fauntleroy having quitted it for an instant, leaving the inner door ajar.
The morning's letters, open, lay in a stack on the table, one upon another, faces upwards. Mr. Richards, a prying man, with a curiosity as sharp as his nose, and both were sharp as a needle, saw these letters, and took the liberty of bending his body forward from the spot where he stood, to bring his eyes within range of their contents. He read the first, which did him no good whatever; and then gently lifted it an inch slant-wise with his thumb and finger, and so came to the second. That likewise afforded him scant gratification; for it did not concern him at all, or any business with which he could possibly be connected, and he lifted it gingerly and came to the third. The third was the all-important letter of the deceased Robert Carr; and Mr. Richards read it with devouring eyes.
He did not care to go on now to the other letters. This was enough; and he regaled himself with a second perusal. A faint foot-fall in the passage warned him, and Mr. Richards stole away from danger.
Mr. Fauntleroy entered, coming bustling in by the door he had left ajar. Surprised perhaps to see the room tenanted which he had left empty, he glanced at his letters. Thought is quick. They were lying in the stack just as he had placed them, certainly undisturbed for any sign they gave; and the visitor was sitting yards off, in a remote chair behind the other door, his legs crossed and his hat held on his knees.
"Ah, Richards! you are here early this morning!"
"I was obliged to come early, sir, to get back in time," said Richards as he rose. "Mr. Mynn is ill, as usual, and Mr. George went to London yesterday afternoon; so the office is left to me."
"Gone to engage his new clerk, isn't he?" asked Mr. Fauntleroy, who had no more objection than Richards to hear somewhat of his neighbours' business.
"I believe so; gone to see him, at all events," replied Richards, speaking with scant ceremony; but it was in his nature so to do. "They want him to come next month, I hear."
"What's his name?"
"Littelton, or Littelby, or some such name. I heard them talking of him in their room. We are going to have a busy winter of it, Mr. Fauntleroy," continued the candid Richards, brushing a speck off his hat; "so the governors want the new man to come to us next month, or in December at latest. We have three causes already on hand for the spring assizes."
"That's pretty well for your quiet folks," returned Mr. Fauntleroy, as he sat down and placed a large weight on the stack of letters. "Whose are they?"
"Well, there's that old-standing cause of the Whitcombs, the remanet from last assizes; and there's a new one that I suppose I must not talk about: it's a breach of trust affair, and our side want it kept close, meaning to have a try at going in for a compromise, which they'll never get: and then there's your cause, Carr versus Carr. But, Mr. Fauntleroy, surely you'll never bring that into court! you can't win, you know."
Mr. Fauntleroy's eyes rested lovingly for a moment on the stack of letters. "If clients are sanguine without reasonable cause, we can't help it you know, Richards."
"Well, how those Holland Carrs can be sanguine bangs me hollow!" was the retort of Mr. Richards. "They've never had the ghost of a case from the first. I was dining at the old squire's on Sunday again, and we got talking of it. The old man was saying he thought the Carrs over in Holland must be mad, to persist risking their money in this way; and so they must be. There never could have been any marriage, Mr. Fauntleroy: I dare say you feel as sure of it as everybody else does."
Mr. Fauntleroy shrugged his huge shoulders. "The clergyman is dead; and the rest may not be so sanguine as he was. I confess I did think him a little mad. And now to your business, Richards. I suppose you have come about that tithe affair. Will Kenneth do for you? I am busy this morning."
"Kenneth won't do until I have had a word with yourself, and shown you a paper," replied Richards, taking out his letter-case. "Just look at that, Mr. Fauntleroy."
Mr. Fauntleroy unfolded the paper handed to him. It had nothing to do with our history; but he apparently found it so interesting or important, that Richards was not dismissed for nearly an hour. And at his departure, to make up for lost time, Mr. Fauntleroy set to work with a will: one of his first tasks being to drop a line to Mrs. Carr, acknowledging the receipt of the important letter, and cautioning her to keep the discovery a strict secret. All unconscious, as he was, that one had seen it in his own office.
Mr. Richards was scuttering along the street to the railway station, when he encountered Benjamin Carr. He could hardly stop to speak, for his own office really wanted him. In the past few weeks, since their first introduction, he and Benjamin Carr had been a great deal together, and the latter placed himself right in his path.
"I can't stay a minute, Ben,"—they had grown familiar, as you perceive,—"I shall lose the train."
Benjamin Carr turned, and stepped out alongside him, with a pace as quick. He began telling him, as they walked, of an outbreak he had had with the "old man," as he was pleased to call his father. "It was all about this money," exclaimed Ben. "He refuses to give me any until this affair is settled; persists in saying he may lose the inheritance: altogether we got in a passion, both of us. As if he could lose it!"
"I suppose it is within the range of possibility," said Richards.
"Nonsense!" replied Benjamin Carr. "You'll say there was a marriage next."
"There might have been."
"Pigs might fly."
"Suppose there was a marriage—and that it can be proved? What then?"
"Suppose there wasn't," wrathfully returned Ben Carr. "I'm not in a mood for joking, Richards."
They stepped on to the platform. The train was not in yet; was scarcely due: one of the porters remarked that "that there mid-day train didn't keep her time as well as some on 'em did." Richards familiarly passed his arm within Benjamin Carr's, and drew him beyond the platform. They turned sideways and halted before a dwarf wall, looking over it at the town, which lay beneath.
"You say you are not in a mood for joking, Ben: neither am I; and what I said to you I said with a meaning," began Richards in a low tone. "It has come to my knowledge—and you needn't ask me how or when or where, for I shan't tell you—that old Marmaduke's money, so far as you Eckford Carrs go, is imperilled. If the thing goes on to trial, you'll lose it: but I should think it won't go on to trial, for you'd never let it when you come to know what I know. The other side has got hold of a piece of evidence that would swamp you."
Benjamin Carr's great dark eyes turned themselves fiercely upon his companion: he saw that he was, in truth, not jesting. "It's not the record of the marriage, is it?" he asked, after a pause.
"Something like it."
Not a word was spoken for a couple of minutes. A little tinkling bell was heard in the station. Benjamin Carr broke the silence.
"Real, or forged?"
"Ah, I don't know. Real, I suppose. The man's dead you see, that young clergyman-fellow who came down, so he'd be hardly likely to get it up. I don't see how it could be done, either, in the present case. It's easier to suppress evidence of a marriage than it is to invent it. Still it may be on the cross."
"Can't you speak plain English, Richards."
"I hardly dare. But I suppose you could be silent, if I were to."
"I suppose I could. I have had secrets to carry in my lifetime weightier than this, whatever it may be."
Benjamin Carr lifted his hat, and wiped his brow with his handkerchief, as if the secrets were there and felt heavy still. Richards looked at him.
"You may speak out, Richards. You can't believe," he added, his tone changed to one of passionate pain, "that it is not safe with me."
"It must be kept safe for your own sake, for your family's sake. If any evidence has turned up, there's no cause to let the world know it before you are compelled. It would be damaging your cause irreparably."
Ben Carr nodded assent. "What is it?" he asked.
"Well, I think they have found out where the marriage was solemnized. I think so, mind; I am not positive. That is, I am not positive of the fact; only that they think it so."
"How did you hear it?"
"Now, Ben, you'll not get me to let out that. I've said so. Perhaps I dreamt it; perhaps a little bird told me: never mind. I mean to go over to your place to see Valentine to-night, and drop him a hint of the state of affairs. Shall you be at home?"
"I didn't mean to be at home for some days to come; but I'll meet you there. Take care of one thing: that you say nothing to the squire."
Mr. Richards gave a knowing nod sideways, as if to intimate that he knew just as well what to do and what not to do as Benjamin Carr. Just then the noise of a train was heard puffing up.
"Here it comes, Richards."
"Here it doesn't," was the reply. "It's coming the wrong way. This is the London train coming in."
The train came in, and stopped on the other side of the platform, while it discharged its passengers and any luggage pertaining to them. It then went puffing on, and the passengers crossed the line to this side, as they had to do before they could leave the station. Benjamin Carr and his friend stood still to look at them, and the former recognised in one of them Mr. Arkell.
"How d'ye do, Mr. Arkell," said Ben, holding out his hand. "Been out anywhere?"
But Mr. Arkell did not see the hand. What with the jostling crowd, what with a small portmanteau he was carrying, what with wondering who the stranger might be, hanging lovingly on Ben's arm, for Mr. Arkell had not the honour of knowing Mr. Richards by sight, he certainly did not appear to see the held-out hand. "Where have you been?" inquired Ben, inquisitively.
"I have been to London, Mr. Benjamin, as you wish to know. A short visit, though."
"Oh," said Ben, meaning to be jocular. "Seen any of my friends there?"
"I saw Mrs. Carr, the clergyman's young widow: I don't know whether you count her as one of your friends. And I saw Mrs. Dundyke."
There was a look in Mr. Arkell's face, not usual on it: a peculiar, solemn, penetrating look. Somehow Mr. Ben Carr's jocularity and his courage went out of him together.
"Mrs. Dundyke?" he repeated, vaguely, staring over the heads of the passing passengers. "Oh, ah, I remember, that connexion of yours. I don't know her."
"I got her to give me a description of the man, calling himself Hardcastle, who lies under the suspicion of knowing rather too clearly what became of Mr. Dundyke. Poor Robert Carr, just dead, attempted the description of him, you may remember, at your father's table."
"Ah; yes," said Ben, striving to be more vague than before: and his dark face perceptibly changed its hue.
"And I may tell you that this description of Mrs. Dundyke's has made a singular impression upon me, and a very disagreeable one. It is not my affair," he added, slowly and distinctly; "and for the present I shall not make it mine: but–"
"Here's your train, Richards. Got a return ticket?"
The two walked forward to meet it, Richards evidently pulled along by his companion. The train came dashing in too far, and had to be backed: porters ran about, departing passengers hustled each other. And altogether, in the general confusion, there was no more to be seen of Mr. Benjamin Carr.
CHAPTER XIII.
A DISLIKE THAT WAS TO BEAR ITS FRUITS
The information, hinted at by Miss Beauclerc to Henry Arkell, had proved to be correct—the dean and chapter purposed to hold an examination of the college school.
To describe the consternation this caused would be difficult. It fell, not only upon the boys, but on the masters, like a clap of thunder: indeed the former cared for it the least. That the school was not in a state, in regard to its proficiency of study, to bear an examination, was a fact known to nearly everybody; and the head master, had it been possible, would have resisted the fiat of the dean.
In point of fact, the school had become notorious for its inefficiency. The old days of confining the boys' studies exclusively to Latin and Greek were over; but the additional branches inaugurated could scarcely be said to have begun. The masters, wedded to the old system, did not take to them kindly; the boys did not, of their own will, take to them at all. They could not spell; they knew nothing of English grammar, except what they could pick up of it through their acquaintance with the Latin; they hardly knew a single event in English, French, or modern history; and of geography they were intensively ignorant. What could be expected? For years and years, for many hours a day, had these boys been kept to work, always at the old routine work, Latin and Greek. Examine them in these classics, and Mr. Wilberforce would have no reason to complain of his pupils; but in all else a charity boy could beat them. Had one of those college boys been required to write a letter in English, every other word in it would have been spelled incorrectly. I am giving you a true account of the state of the school at that period: and I fear that you will scarcely believe it. A few of the boys, a very few, only some three or four, had been generally well educated; but these owed it to the care, the forethought, perhaps the means of their parents: home tutors were expensive.
As Miss Beauclerc had said, it was in consequence of a letter, written by one of the senior boys, that this trouble had come about. It was a disgraceful letter—speaking in reference to its spelling and composition—neither more nor less. The letter had been brought under the astonished eyes of one of the chapter, and he showed it to the dean. They awoke from their supineness, and much indignation at the young scholar was privately expressed. What did they expect? Did they think spelling came to the boys intuitively, as pecking at grain does to birds? It may be said that the boys ought to have been able to spell correctly before entering the school, and to have possessed some other general learning; that the parents ought to have taken care of that. But "ought" does not go for much in this world. Many of the boys were indulged children who had never been brought on at all, except in reading, and that was essential, or they could not be admitted; and, at that time, they entered young—nine years old. As they went in, little ignoramuses, so they remained, except in the classics. Many a boy has gone from that school to the university not educated at all, save in the dead languages.
Of course, when the innovation (as the masters regarded it) came in, a little stir was caused. A pretence was made of teaching the school foreign branches, such as spelling and geography; but whether it might be owing to the innate prejudice of their masters, or to their own stupidity, little, if any, progress was made. The boys remained lamentably deficient; and they thought it no shame to be so. Rather the contrary, in fact; for a feeling grew up in the school that these common branches of learning were not essential to them as gentlemen; that it was derogatory altogether to a foundation school to have them introduced. The masters had winked at this state of things, and they perhaps did not know how intensely ignorant some of their best classical scholars were.
It may be imagined, therefore, what the consternation was when the dean's announcement was received early in August. There was to be an examination held; but not until November; so the boys and the masters had three months to prepare. It's true you cannot convert ignorant boys into finished scholars in three months, however humble may be the attainments required; but you may do something towards it by means of drilling. So the boys, to their intense disgust, were drilled late and early—and that disgust did not render their apprehensions the quicker.
Amidst the very few who need not fear that, or any other examination, was Henry Arkell. He was not yet a senior boy (speaking of the four seniors), but he was by far the best scholar in the school. He owed this chiefly to his father. Mr. Peter Arkell was so finished a scholar himself, it had been strange indeed if he had not sought to render his son one; and Henry's abilities were of a most superior order. Indeed—but that a sort of prejudice exists against these clever lads, I could say a great deal more of his abilities, his attainments, than I mean to say—for this is no fictitious history. Intellectual, clever, good, refined, sensitive, Henry Arkell seemed to be one of those superior spirits not meant for this world. The event too often proves that they were not meant for it.
He was not a favourite in the school, except with a few. By the majority he was intensely disliked. The dislike arose from envy, and his own gifts excited it. His unusual beauty, his sensitive temperament, his refinement of manner, his ever-pervading sense of religion, his honourable nature, as seen in even the smallest action,—all and each of them were objectionable to the rough schoolboys. Most of these qualities he had inherited from his mother, and for any one of them, the school, as a whole, would have ridiculed and despised him. They would have been quite enough without his superior advancement; which put them to the shame, and called forth now and again some stinging comparison from the lips of the head master. When he first entered the school, he had unintentionally excited the ill-will of the two sons of Mrs. Lewis, and of their chosen companions, the two Aultanes. These boys longed above everything to thrash him every day of their lives; but he had been taken under the protection of Mr. St. John and Travice Arkell, and they dared not, and it did not increase their love for him.
But there was to arise a worse cause of enmity than any of these, as Henry grew older, and that was the favour shown him by the dean's daughter. To see him under the especial favour of the dean was aggravation enough; but that was as nothing compared to the intimacy accorded him by the dean's daughter. You know what these things are with schoolboys. Half the school believed themselves in love with this attractive girl, who condescended to freedom with them; the other half were in love with her. After their fashion, you know. It was not that serious love that makes or mars the heart for all time, though the boys might think it so. Lewis senior—his name was Roland, and he was one of the four senior boys—was especially envious of this favour of Miss Beauclerc's. He was very fond of her, and would have given all he possessed in the world for it to be accorded to him. He could only love and admire her at a distance; while Arkell might tell it to her face if he pleased—and Lewis felt sure he did. He hated Henry with a passionate hatred. He saw, with that intuition natural to these things, that Henry loved Georgina Beauclerc, and with no passing school-boy's love. He wished that the earth contained only their three selves, that he might set upon the fragile boy and kill him, and keep the young lady to himself ever afterwards—Adam and Eve in a second Paradise. Indeed, Mr. Lewis had got into a habit of indulging this train of thought rather more than was wholesome for him, and would have shot Henry Arkell in a duel with all the non-compunction in the world.
Not being able to do this—for the human race could not be exterminated so easily, and duels are not in fashion—he made up for the disappointment by rendering Henry Arkell's life as miserable as it is well possible for one boy to render another's. He excited the school against him; he openly derided the position and known poverty of his father, Peter Arkell; and he positively affected to rebel—he would have rebelled had he dared—when Henry came to reside temporarily in the head master's house. The scholars in that house had hitherto been gentlemen, he said, loudly. Indeed, but for one fortunate circumstance, Henry's life at the master's might have been rendered nearly unbearable; and this was, that he was in favour with the senior boy—an idle, gentlemanly fellow of the name of Jocelyn. So long as Jocelyn remained in the school, there could be no very undue open oppression put upon Henry Arkell. It was not that the head boy held Henry in any especial favour; but he was of too just a nature, too much the gentleman in ideas and habits, to permit cruelty or unfairness of any sort. But you have now heard enough to gather that Henry Arkell was not in favour with the majority of the college boys, his fellows; and you hear its causes.
The cramming that the boys were now subjected to, did not improve their temper. Unfortunately, the dean had not specified—perhaps purposely—what would be the branches chosen for examination. Mr. Wilberforce and the under masters presumed that it would chiefly lie in the classics, and, so far, were tolerably easy; but the result of this was, that the Latin and Greek lessons were increased, leaving less time for what they were pleased to consider inferior studies.
"Suppose," suggested the second master, one day, "it should be in those other studies that the dean purposes to examine them?"
Mr. Wilberforce turned purple.
"In those!—to the exclusion of the higher! Nonsense! It is not likely. The boys will cut a pretty figure if he should."
"The fact is, they are such a dull lot."
"Most of them: yes. I think, Mr. Roberts, you had better hold some dictation classes; and we'll get in a few conspicuous maps."
But all the studies that came in addition, whether dictation classes or the staring at maps, the boys resented wofully; and though they were obliged to submit, it did not, I say, improve their temper. One afternoon in October, when everything seemed to have gone wrong, and the school rather wished, on the whole, that they had never been born, or that books had not been invented, or that they were private pupils of the head master's (for they were not to be included in the examination, only the forty foundation boys, the king's scholars), the school was waiting impatiently to hear half-past four strike, for then only another half-hour must elapse before they would be released from school. The choristers had come in at four o'clock from service with the head master, whose week it was for chanting, and had settled down to their respective desks. Henry Arkell, who was at the first desk now, but nothing like its head, for promotion in the school was not attained by proficiency, but by priority of entrance, had come in with the rest; he was senior chorister now, and was seated bending over a book, his head half buried between his raised hands, and his elbows on the desk.