The Channings
“Now, then!” retorted Gerald Yorke. “Why should you have the chance before me, pray?”
Huntley laughed. “Only that my name heads yours on the rolls.”
Once in three years there fell an exhibition for Helstonleigh College school, to send a boy to Oxford. It would be due the following Easter. Gaunt declined to compete for it; he would leave the school at Michaelmas; and it was a pretty generally understood thing that whichever of the three mentioned boys should be appointed senior in his place, would be presented with the exhibition. Channing and Yorke most ardently desired to gain it; both of them from the same motive—want of funds at home to take them to the university. If Tom Channing did not gain it, he was making up his mind to pocket pride, and go as a servitor. Yorke would not have done such a thing for the world; all the proud Yorke blood would be up in arms, at one of their name appearing as a servitor at Oxford. No. If Gerald Yorke should lose the exhibition, Lady Augusta must manage to screw out funds to send him. He and Tom Channing were alike designed for the Church. Harry Huntley had no such need: the son of a gentleman of good property, the exhibition was of little moment to him, in a pecuniary point of view; indeed, a doubt had been whispered amongst the boys, whether Mr. Huntley would allow Harry to take advantage of it, if he did gain it, for he was a liberal-minded and just man. Harry, of course, desired to be the successful one, for fame’s sake, just as ardently as did Channing and Yorke.
“I’m blessed if here isn’t that renowned functionary, Jack Ketch!”
The exclamation came from young Galloway. Limping in at one of the cloister doors, came the cloister porter, a surly man of sixty, whose temper was not improved by periodical attacks of lumbago. He and the college boys were open enemies. The porter would have rejoiced in denying them the cloisters altogether; and nothing had gladdened his grim old heart like the discussion which was said to have taken place between the dean and chapter, concerning the propriety of shutting out the boys and their noise from the cloisters, as a playground. He bore an unfortunate name—Ketch—and the boys, you may be very sure, did not fail to take advantage of it, joining to it sundry embellishments, more pointed than polite.
He came up, a ragged gig-whip in his hand, which he was fond of smacking round the throng of boys. He had never yet ventured to touch one of them, and perhaps it was just as well for him that he had not.
“Now, you boys! be off, with your hullabaloo! Is this a decent noise to make around gentlefolks’ doors? You don’t know, may be, as Dr. Burrows is in town.”
Dr. Burrows happened to live in a house which had a door opening to the cloisters. The boys retorted. The worst they gave Mr. Ketch was “chaff;” but his temper could bear anything better than that, especially if it was administered by the senior boy.
“Dear me, who’s this?” began Gaunt, in a tone of ultra politeness. “Boys, do you see this gentleman who condescends to accost us? I really believe it is Sir John Ketch. What’s that in his hand?—a piece of rope? Surely, Mr. Ketch, you have not been turning off that unfortunate prisoner who was condemned yesterday? Rather hasty work, sir; was it not?”
Mr. Ketch foamed. “I tell you what it is, sir. You be the senior boy, and, instead of restraining these wicked young reptiles, you edges ‘em on! Take care, young gent, as I don’t complain of you to the dean. Seniors have been hoisted afore now.”
“Have they, really? Well, you ought to know, Mr. Calcraft. There’s the dean, just gone out of the cloisters; if you make haste, Calcraft, you’ll catch him up. Put your best foot foremost, and ask him if he won’t report Mr. Gaunt for punishment.”
The porter could have danced with rage; and his whip was smacking ominously. He did not dare advance it too near the circle when the senior boy was present, or indeed, when any of the elder boys were.
“How’s your lumbago, Mr. Ketch?” demanded Stephen Bywater. “I’d advise you to get rid of that, before the next time you go on duty; it might be in your way, you know. Never was such a thing heard of, as for the chief toppler-off of the three kingdoms to be disabled in his limbs! What would you do? I’m afraid you’d be obliged to resign your post, and sink into private life.”
“Now I just vow to goodness, as I’ll do all I can to get these cloisters took from you boys,” shrieked old Ketch, clasping his hands together. “There’s insults as flesh and blood can’t stand; and, as sure as I’m living, I’ll pay you out for it.”
He turned tail and hobbled off, as he spoke, and the boys raised “three groans for Jack Ketch,” and then rushed away by the other entrance to their own dinners. The fact was, the porter had brought ill will upon himself, through his cross-grained temper. He had no right whatever to interfere between the boys and the cloisters; it was not his place to do so. The king’s scholars knew this; and, being spirited king’s scholars, as they were, would not stand it.
“Tom,” said Arthur Channing, “don’t say anything at home about the organ. Wait and see if I get it, first. Charley did not hear; he was ordered off with the juniors.”
CHAPTER VIII. – THE ASSISTANT-ORGANIST
Things often seem to go by the rule of contrary. Arthur returned to the office at two o’clock, brimful of the favour he was going to solicit of Mr. Galloway; but he encountered present disappointment. For the first time for many weeks, Mr. Galloway did not make his appearance in the office at all; he was out the whole of the afternoon. Roland Yorke, to whom Arthur confided the plan, ridiculed it.
“Catch me taking such a task upon myself! If I could play the organ like a Mendelssohn, and send the folks into ecstasies, I’d never saddle myself with the worry of doing it morning and afternoon. You’ll soon be sick of the bargain, Channing.”
“I should never be sick of it, if I did it for nothing: I am too fond of music for that. And it will be a very easy way of earning money.”
“Not so easy as making your mother stump up,” was the reply. And if your refinement turns from the expression, my good reader, I am sorry you should have to read it; but it is what Mr. Roland Yorke said. “I had a regular scene with Lady Augusta this morning. It’s the most unreasonable thing in the world, you know, Channing, for her to think I can live without money, and so I told her—said I must and would have it, in fact.”
“Did you get it?”
“Of course I did. I wanted to pay Simms, and one or two more trifles that were pressing; I was not going to have the fellow here after me again. I wish such a thing as money had never been invented!”
“You may as well wish we could live without eating.”
“So I do, sometimes—when I go home, expecting a good dinner, and there’s only some horrid cold stuff upon the table. There never was a worse housekeeper than Lady Augusta. It’s my belief, our servants must live like fighting cocks; for I am sure the bills are heavy enough, and we don’t get the benefit of them.”
“What made you so late this afternoon?” asked Arthur.
“I went round to pay Simms, for one thing; and then I called in upon Hamish, and stayed talking with him. Wasn’t he in a sea of envy when I told him I had been scoring off that Simms! He wished he could do the same.”
“Hamish does not owe anything to Simms!” cried Arthur, with hasty retort.
“Doesn’t he?” laughed Roland Yorke. “That’s all you know about it. Ask him yourself.”
“If you please, sir,” interposed Mr. Jenkins, at this juncture, “I shall soon be waiting for that paper. Mr. Galloway directed me to send it off by post.”
“Bother the paper!” returned Roland; but, nevertheless, he applied himself to complete it. He was in the habit of discoursing upon private topics before Jenkins without any reserve, regarding him as a perfect nonentity.
When Arthur went home in the evening, he found Mr. Galloway sitting with his father. “Well,” cried the proctor, as Arthur entered, “and who has been at the office this afternoon?”
“No one in particular, sir. Oh yes, there was, though—I forgot. The dean looked in, and wanted to see you.”
“What did he want?”
“He did not say, sir. He told Jenkins it would do another time.” Arthur left his father and Mr. Galloway together. He did not broach the subject that was uppermost in his heart. Gifted with rare delicacy of feeling, he would not speak to Mr. Galloway until he could see him alone. To prefer the request in his father’s presence might have caused Mr. Galloway more trouble in refusing it.
“I can’t think what has happened to Arthur this evening!” exclaimed one of them. “His spirits are up to fever heat. Tell us what it is, Arthur?”
Arthur laughed. “I hope they will not be lowered to freezing point within the next hour; that’s all.”
When he heard Mr. Galloway leaving, he hastened after him, and overtook him in the Boundaries.
“I wanted to say a few words to you, sir, if you please?”
“Say on,” said Mr. Galloway. “Why did you not say them indoors?”
“I scarcely know how I shall say them now, sir; for it is a very great favour that I have to ask you, and you may be angry, perhaps, at my thinking you might grant it.”
“You want a holiday, I suppose?”
“Oh no, sir; nothing of that sort. I want—”
“Well?” cried Mr. Galloway, surprised at his hesitation; but now that the moment of preferring the request had come, Arthur shrank from doing it.
“Could you allow me, sir—would it make very much difference—to allow me—to come to the office an hour earlier, and remain in it an hour later?” stammered Arthur.
“What for?” exclaimed Mr. Galloway, with marked surprise.
“I have had an offer made me, sir, to take the cathedral organ at week-day service. I should very much like to accept it, if it could be managed.”
“Why, where’s Jupp?” uttered Mr. Galloway.
“Jupp has resigned. He is ill, and is going out for his health. I’ll tell you how it all happened,” went on Arthur, losing diffidence now that he was fairly launched upon his subject. “Of course, this failure of the suit makes a great difference to our prospects at home; it renders it incumbent upon us to do what we can to help—”
“Why does it?” interrupted Mr. Galloway. “It may make a difference to your future ease, but it makes none to your present means.”
“There is money wanted in many ways, sir; a favourable termination to the suit was counted upon so certainly. For one thing, it is necessary that my father should try the German baths.”
“Of course, he must try them,” cried Mr. Galloway.
“But it will cost money, sir,” deprecated Arthur. “Altogether, we have determined to do what we can. Constance has set us the example, by engaging herself as daily governess at Lady Augusta’s. She goes on Monday.”
“Very commendable of her,” observed the proctor, who loved a gossip like any old woman. “I hope she’ll not let those two unruly girls worry her to death.”
“And I was casting about in my mind, this morning, what I could do to help, when I met the organist,” proceeded Arthur. “He chanced to say that he could find no one to take the music copying. Well, sir, I thought it over, and at one o’clock I went to ask him to give it to me. I found him at the organ, in a state of vexation. Jupp had resigned his post, and Mr. Williams had no one to replace him. The long and the short of it is, sir, that he offered it to me.”
“And did you accept it?” crossly responded Mr. Galloway.
“Of course I could not do that, sir, until I had spoken to you. If it were possible that I could make up the two hours to you, I should be very glad to take it.”
“And do it for nothing, I suppose?”
“Oh no. He would give me fifty pounds a year. And there would be the copying besides.”
“That’s a great deal!” cried Mr. Galloway. “It appears to me to be good pay,” replied Arthur. “But he would lose a great deal more than that, if he had to attend the cathedral himself. He said it would ruin his teaching.”
“Ah! self-interest—two for himself and one for you!” ejaculated the proctor. “What does Mr. Channing say?”
“I have said nothing at home. It was of no use telling them, until I had spoken to you. Now that my prospects are gone—”
“What prospects?” interrupted Mr. Galloway.
“My articles to you, sir. Of course there’s no chance of that now.”
Mr. Galloway grunted. “The ruin that Chancery suits work! Mark you, Arthur Channing, this is such a thing as was never asked a proctor before—leave of absence for two hours in the best part of the day! If I grant it, it will be out of the great friendship I bear your father.”
“Oh, sir! I shall never forget the obligation.”
“Take care you don’t. You must come and work for two hours before breakfast in a morning.”
“Willingly—readily!” exclaimed Arthur Channing, his face glowing. “Then may I really tell Mr. Williams that I can accept it?”
“If I don’t say yes, I suppose you’d magnify me into a sullen old bear, as bad as Ketch, the porter. You may accept it. Stop!” thundered Mr. Galloway, coming to a dead standstill.
Arthur was startled. “What now, sir?”
“Are you to be instructor to those random animals, the choristers?”
“Oh no: I shall have nothing to do with that.”
“Very good. If you had taken to them, I should have recommended you to guard against such a specimen of singing as was displayed the other day before the judges.”
Arthur laughed; spoke a word of heartfelt thanks; and took his way off-hand to the residence of the organist as light as any bird.
“I have obtained leave, Mr. Williams; I may take your offer!” he exclaimed with scant ceremony, when he found himself in that gentleman’s presence, who was at tea with his wife. “Mr. Galloway has authorized me to accept it. How do you do, Mrs. Williams?”
“That’s a great weight off my mind, then!” cried the organist. “I set that dolt of an apprentice of mine to play the folks out of college, this afternoon, when service was over, and—of all performances! Six mistakes he made in three bars, and broke down at last. I could have boxed his ears. The dean was standing below when I went down. ‘Who was that playing, Mr. Williams?’ he demanded. So, I told him about Jupp’s ill-behaviour in leaving me, and that I had offered the place to you. ‘But is Channing quite competent?’ cried he—for you know what a fine ear for music the dean has:—‘besides,’ he added, ‘is he not at Galloway’s?’ I said we hoped Mr. Galloway would spare you, and that I would answer for your competency. So, mind, Channing, you must put on the steam, and not disgrace my guarantee. I don’t mean the steam of noise, or that you should go through the service with all the stops out.”
Arthur laughed; and, declining the invitation to remain and take tea, he went out. He was anxious to declare the news at home. A few steps on his road, he overtook Hamish.
“Where do you spring from?” exclaimed Hamish, passing his arm within Arthur’s.
“From concluding an agreement that will bring me in fifty pounds a year,” said Arthur.
“Gammon, Master Arthur!”
“It is not gammon, Hamish. It is sober truth.”
Hamish turned and looked at him, aroused by something in the tone. “And what are you to do for it?”
“Just pass a couple of hours a day, delighting my own ears and heart. Do you remember what Constance said, last night? Hamish, it is wonderful, that this help should so soon have come to me!”
“Stay! Where are you going?” interrupted Hamish, as Arthur was turning into a side-street.
“This is the nearest way home.”
“I had rather not go that way.”
“Why?” exclaimed Arthur, in surprise. “Hamish, how funny you look! What is the matter?”
“Must I tell you? It is for your ear alone, mind. There’s a certain tradesman’s house down there that I’d rather not pass; he has a habit of coming out and dunning me. Do you remember Mr. Dick Swiveller?”
Hamish laughed gaily. He would have laughed on his road to prison: it was in his nature. But Arthur seemed to take a leap from his high ropes. “Is it Simms?” he breathed.
“No, it is not Simms. Who has been telling you anything about Simms, Arthur? It is not so very much that I owe Simms. What is this good luck of yours?”
Arthur did not immediately reply. A dark shadow had fallen upon his spirit, as a forerunner of evil.
CHAPTER IX. – HAMISH’S CANDLES
Old Judith sat in her kitchen. Her hands were clasped upon her knees, and her head was bent in thought. Rare indeed was it to catch Judith indulging in a moment’s idleness. She appeared to be holding soliloquy with herself.
“It’s the most incomprehensible thing in the world! I have heard of ghosts—and, talking about ghosts, that child was in a tremor, last night, again—I’m sure he was. Brave little heart! he goes up to bed in the dark on purpose to break himself of the fear. I went in for them shirts missis told me of, and he started like anything, and his face turned white. He hadn’t heard me till I was in the room; I’d no candle, and ‘twas enough to startle him. ‘Oh, is it you, Judith?’ said he, quietly, making believe to be as indifferent as may be. I struck a light, for I couldn’t find the shirts, and then I saw his white face. He can’t overget the fear: ‘twas implanted in him in babyhood: and I only wish I could get that wicked girl punished as I’d punish her, for it was her work. But about the t’other? I have heard of ghosts walking—though, thank goodness, I’m not frightened at ‘em, like the child is!—but for a young man to go upstairs, night after night, pretending to go to rest, and sitting up till morning light, is what I never did hear on. If it was once in a way, ‘twould be a different thing; but it’s always. I’m sure it’s pretty nigh a year since—”
“Why, Judith, you are in a brown study!”
The interruption came from Constance, who had entered the kitchen to give an order. Judith looked up.
“I’m in a peck of trouble, Miss Constance. And the worst is, I don’t know whether to tell about it, or to keep it in. He’d not like it to get to the missis’s ears, I know: but then, you see, perhaps I ought to tell her—for his sake.”
Constance smiled. “Would you like to tell me, instead of mamma? Charley has been at some mischief again, among the saucepans? Burnt out more bottoms, perhaps?”
“Not he, the darling!” resentfully rejoined Judith. “The burning out of that one was enough for him. I’m sure he took contrition to himself, as if it had been made of gold.”
“What is it, then?”
“Well,” said Judith, looking round, as if fearing the walls would hear, and speaking mysteriously, “it’s about Mr. Hamish. I don’t know but I will tell you, Miss Constance, and it’ll be, so far, a weight off my mind. I was just saying to myself that I had heard of ghosts walking, but what Mr. Hamish does every blessed night, I never did hear of, in all my born days.”
Constance felt a little startled. “What does he do?” she hastily asked.
“You know, Miss Constance, my bedroom’s overhead, above the kitchen here, and, being built out on the side, I can see the windows at the back of the house from it—as we can see ‘em from this kitchen window, for the matter of that, if we put our heads out. About a twelvemonth ago—I’m sure its not far short of it—I took to notice that the light in Mr. Hamish’s chamber wasn’t put out so soon as it was in the other rooms. So, one night, when I was half-crazy with that face-ache—you remember my having it, Miss Constance?—and knew I shouldn’t get to sleep, if I lay down, I thought I’d just see how long he kept it in. Would you believe, Miss Constance, that at three o’clock in the morning his light was still burning?”
“Well,” said Constance, feeling the tale was not half told.
“I thought, what on earth could he be after? I might have feared that he had got into bed and left it alight by mistake, but that I saw his shadow once or twice pass the blind. Well, I didn’t say a word to him next day, I thought he might not like it: but my mind wouldn’t be easy, and I looked out again, and I found that, night after night, that light was in. Miss Constance, I thought I’d trick him: so I took care to put just about an inch of candle in his bed candlestick, and no more: but, law bless me! when folks is bent on forbidden things, it is not candle-ends that will stop ‘em!”
“I suppose you mean that the light burnt still, in spite of your inch of candle?” said Constance.
“It just did,” returned Judith. “He gets into my kitchen and robs my candle-box, I thought to myself. So I counted my candles and marked ‘em; and I found I was wrong, for they wasn’t touched. But one day, when I was putting his cupboard to rights, I came upon a paper right at the back. Two great big composite candles it had in it, and another half burnt away. Oh, this is where you keep your store, my young master, is it? I thought. They were them big round things, which seems never to burn to an end, three to the pound.”
Constance made no reply. Judith gathered breath, and continued:
“I took upon myself to speak to him. I told him it wasn’t well for anybody’s health, to sit up at night, in that fashion; not counting the danger he ran of setting the house on fire and burning us all to cinders in our beds. He laughed—you know his way, Miss Constance—and said he’d take care of his health and of the house, and I was just to make myself easy and hold my tongue, and that I need not be uneasy about fire, for I could open my window and drop into the rain-water barrel, and there I should be safe. But, in spite of his joking tone, there ran through it a sound of command; and, from that hour to this, I have never opened my lips about it to anybody living.”
“And he burns the light still?”
“Except Saturday and Sunday nights, it’s always alight, longer or shorter. Them two nights, he gets into bed respectable, as the rest of the house do. You have noticed, Miss Constance, that, the evenings he is not out, he’ll go up to his chamber by half-past nine or ten?”
“Frequently,” assented Constance. “As soon as the reading is over, he will wish us good night.”
“Well, them nights, when he goes up early, he puts his light out sooner—by twelve, or by half-past, or by one; but when he spends his evenings out, not getting home until eleven, he’ll have it burning till two or three in the morning.”
“What can he sit up for?” involuntarily exclaimed Constance.
“I don’t know, unless it is that the work at the office is too heavy for him,” said Judith. “He has his own work to do there, and master’s as well.”
“It is not at all heavy,” said Constance. “There is an additional clerk since papa’s illness, you know. It cannot be that.”
“It has to do with the office-books, for certain,” returned Judith. “Why else is he so particular in taking ‘em into his room every night?”
“He takes—them—for safety,” spoke Constance, in a very hesitating manner, as if not feeling perfectly assured of the grounds for her assertion.
“Maybe,” sniffed Judith, in disbelief. “It can’t be that he sits up to read,” she resumed. “Nobody in their senses would do that. Reading may be pleasant to some folks, especially them story-books; but sleep is pleasanter. This last two or three blessed nights, since that ill news come to make us miserable, I question if he has gone to bed at all, for his candle has only been put out when daylight came to shame it.”
“But, Judith, how do you know all this?” exclaimed Constance, after a few minutes’ reflection. “You surely don’t sit up to watch the light?”
“Pretty fit I should be for my work in the morning, if I did! No, Miss Constance. I moved my bed round to the other corner, so as I could see his window as I lay in it; and I have got myself into a habit of waking up at all hours and looking. Truth to say, I’m not easy: fire is sooner set alight than put out: and if there’s the water-butt for me to drop into, there ain’t water-butts for the rest of the house.”
“Very true,” murmured Constance, speaking as if she were in reflection.
“Nobody knows the worry this has been upon my mind,” resumed Judith. “Every night when I have seen his window alight, I have said to myself, ‘I’ll tell my mistress of this when morning comes;’ but, when the morning has come, my resolution has failed me. It might worry her, and anger Mr. Hamish, and do no good after all. If he really has not time for his books in the day, why he must do ‘em at night, I suppose; it would never do for him to fall off, and let the master’s means drop through. What ought to be done, Miss Constance?”