Chapter 4

WILTON SCHOOL.

The examination--Wilton school--Harry's class-room--Absorbed--Prized possessions--Too busy--Cribbing--Misplaced sympathy--Harry blushes.

The morning sun shone brightly over Wilton as Harry started to school; brightly over the dancing waters of the roadstead; and the seawind sang gaily through the wave-washed piles of the pier. The school-bell was ringing lustily as Harry passed through the iron gates into the playground. Everything was in bustle and confusion. Bats and balls were laid aside; jackets thrust on hastily; rough heads smoothed by hot hands. From their different house-doors the masters were emerging, putting on, as they came, gowns, some brand-new, some rusty and worn. The whole stream was setting in one and the same direction, towards the doors of the school-buildings. And by the time the bell's last clang had ceased, masters and boys were duly assembled in their respective places in the big school-room. Prayers over, Dr Palmer announced, amid breathless silence, the regulations respecting the examination, which was unexpectedly to begin, in part, that morning. Who does not remember those anxious, nervous days, before the examination; the anticipation worse, if possible, than the actual realisation; the visions of questions unanswered, translations sent up full of mistakes, sums that never would come out right, problems that never would be proved?

For the first few days questions, to be answered on paper, would be set to the whole school according to their respective work and classes. On the fifth day the examiner would arrive; he would commence at the bottom of the school, and, taking two classes each day, examine them _vivâ voce_.

This was the substance of Dr Palmer's speech; and then the business of the morning began.

The different classes and their masters filed away into their particular rooms, Dr Palmer and the senior form being left alone in the big school-room.

The greater portion of the school-buildings, it should be stated, had been converted some years ago from the remains of an old monastery. Standing on a slight eminence, and backed by a deep belt of firs, broad meadows sloped from it, straight down to a grey shingly beach, where the boys used to bathe. Three sides only had left their ruins behind; and these were accordingly rebuilt, as closely after the original style as was possible. There was the shadowy row of cool cloisters, edging the square smooth-shaven plot of grass, which no boy was allowed to cross. Then all round the building above the cloisters were various class-rooms; and at the end of one wing stood the chapel, and at the other, the big school-room.

Harry's class-room was in one corner, and consequently was darker than most of the others; but this the boys liked in the summer; it was such a contrast after the glaring sun that streamed in through the windows of the big school-room. And Harry's place, too, in the room, he specially liked; close to the window, he could look out, through its ivied frame, across the smooth green lawn, away down the meadows to the distant sea. And who can wonder that the sight of the heaving billows brought thoughts of his father to him many a time and oft? But many a time, too, those dreams were snapt by the voice of Mr Prichard, his master--

"Campbell, attend to your work;" or, "Campbell, don't look out of the window;" or, when in a facetious mood, "Campbell, you cannot learn your delectus by the light of nature."

But this morning, Harry was far too occupied to stare about. Not that he was thinking specially of what his mother had told him the night before, that she would soon be gone away from him; childlike, he had almost forgotten that, or at any rate the examination, for the time being, absorbed his whole attention. And like us all, he could not realise the sorrow his mother's words conveyed. Who of us, indeed, does not feel, even when standing over the grave of some dear one dead, even when decking the green mound with flowers--feel it is well-nigh impossible fully to realise that those hands, now laid white beneath the mould, will never again be clasped in ours on earth. So it is no wonder that Harry was in his usual good spirits; with this only difference, that the examination into whose depths he had now plunged, was filling him with nervous excitement and terrified interest.

Each boy had a desk and stool to himself, and to the little boys the desk-key was a proud possession. The sixteen desks were ranged in even rows, Mr Prichard's being at the opposite end, it so happened, to Harry's place. By Harry sat Egerton the new boy, the dreaded rival; and as they bent, side by side, over their desks, their pens and inky fingers scrambling as hard as possible over their papers, many eyes were turned upon them, to see which appeared to be getting on best.

Harry himself was too busy to take any notice of Egerton; and the morning was half-gone, and he had scarcely looked from his desk. But a sudden impulse or wish to rest awhile, made him pause and lay down his pen. And this is what met his eyes. Mr Prichard was standing with his back to the boys, writing some directions on the class notice-board, not hurrying himself, and quite lost in what he was doing. He was an absent man, was Mr Prichard. All the boys were busy writing, or scratching their heads (a process commonly supposed to assist meditation), save one, and that was Egerton. But he was not idle. He was busy, a great deal too much so.

In his lap lay an open book. His desk, of course, concealed this from Mr Prichard, and from the rest of the room, except Harry; who, as he sat in the same row with him, alone could see; for Egerton's jacket, carefully pulled forward, screened his proceedings from the boy on his other side. His eyes were greedily fixed on the book; then he would write a little, then look again, then write again. He was cribbing.

Harry was so thunderstruck that he stared open-mouthed at him. Just then he heard Mr Prichard's voice, sterner than usual: "Campbell, what are you looking at, sir?" Poor Harry's heart sank within him. He could not, would not, tell; that would be sneaking. And yet he knew from the way in which Mr Prichard spoke that he suspected him of looking over Egerton's paper. The fact was, Mr Prichard had turned round suddenly, and catching Harry's eyes strained eagerly in the direction of Egerton's desk, had naturally imagined that he, and not Egerton, was taking an unfair advantage. Those few words of his sowed a crop of prejudice among the boys against Harry. "Campbell's been caught cribbing off Egerton," was what rose to the mind and lips of all; and a sort of sympathy grew up in favour of the true culprit, because it appeared that he had been the sufferer.

Naturally enough, there was a slight commotion in the room, and this gave Egerton ample opportunity to hide his book by sitting on it, or--but we must not anticipate.

Soon after, Harry finished his paper, folded it, and walked to Mr Prichard's desk; in his hurry, leaving his own open at the time. As he handed in his work he said, stammering: "I wasn't looking at Egerton's paper, sir; indeed I wasn't," and then blushed crimson. Mr Prichard said nothing, but looked very hard at him, and this made Harry blush the more. Then he went back to his desk (which he never noticed was now closed), locked it, and sat quietly till the class was dismissed; and shortly after was running home to his mother.