The Pillars of the House, V1

'Considering that Will was the sole cause of the doctor being wanted at all, we could only wish to bear the damages.'

'I hope you have told Wilmet. It would be a ton weight off her mind.'

'I hope she would think the Chapter did it; but if you think she is anxious, let her know that it is all right.'

'You are a brick, John! But Felix himself said it would be a close shave. I wish I could throttle that Bexley Tribune, and all its dirty supporters!'

'Do you know, Lance, I am very much struck with your brother's-ay, and old Froggatt's conduct in this matter.'

Lance flushed with pleasure. 'Go ahead, Jack!'

'Of course, for a paper to keep its politics is nothing; but to take up the cause of an unpopular man, whose slights have been marked-'

'Who has been a malicious little cad,' chimed in the chorister.

'To take up his cause simply as a matter of justice, and therewith of the Church, without truckling to public opinion, at absolute risk and loss, seems to me generosity and principle quite out of the common way.'

'You're about right there,' said Lance, intensely gratified; 'and doesn't it make one burn to help the old fellow?'

'Quite true. The question is, which way to help him; and while I grant you that the being idle at home just now is a terrible trial, whether it might not be better to be patient under it, than to disqualify yourself for a line in which you might do more-that is if it does disqualify you.'

'What line do you mean?' said Lance.

'Scholarship, the University.'

'That wasn't what I wanted most,' said Lance; 'and as for that, I'm disqualified enough by all this waste of time.'

'What was your wish, then?'

'I'll tell you,' said Lance, with lowered voice. 'When I used to lie catching notes of the chanting, and knowing that the organ was quiet for me, I used to feel that if I got well, I must give up my life to it, and study music in full earnest, so as to be a real lift to people's praise, perhaps in our own Cathedral. I thought maybe I could get in as a lay-vicar when my year is up, and work at harmony under Miles, and take a musical degree. But then came that day when the organ seemed to be crushing and grinding my head to bits-and of all Psalms in the world it was the forty-second! and Manby telling me on my life not to try to do anything for I can't tell how long.'

'Was that the reason you sold your violin?'

'No, of course not; except that it was a sin and a shame to keep it for no good, when I thought a pound might pull that little ape Bernard out of the mire. And I've been asking questions, and find it would take huge time and cost to study music so as to be worth anything; and here am I, a great lout, not doing that or any other good on the face of the earth-as much worse than Theodore as I am bigger. So if I can help Felix, when he is fighting the fight in the Pursuivant for God's honour and good and right, wouldn't that be a sort of service?'

'So undertaken,' said John, with a huskiness in his voice. 'Well, Lance, I will talk it over with Felix, if you like.'

For John Harewood, not having any strong musical bias, did not greatly appreciate the career that Lance had chalked out for himself; and while thrilled by the boy's devotional feeling, thought it tinged by enthusiasm, and had seen enough of Cathedral singing-men to have no wish to see him among them. If the loss of time was to prevent a University career, he thought book-selling under Felix's eye the preferable occupation.

Discussion was, however, deferred by the arrival of a home friend, who had sought him out at the hotel; and Lance had to go home without him, and wear through the day between dawdling, drawing, and playing with Stella, as best he might, till after school-hours; when, eager to turn to the account of his wardrobe these moments when Wilmet was free from her Captain, he drew her into his room.

Presently after, Felix heard the most amazing noises to which his family had ever treated him, and thankful that the wet day had reduced the denizens of the reading-room to one deaf old gentleman, he hurried upstairs, and beheld through the open door of Mr. Froggatt's room, Bernard raying, roaring, dancing, and stamping, in an over-mastering passion, and tearing some paper up with teeth and hands. Just then Lance grasped his collar, and tried in vain to rescue the paper; but he fought with fists, bites, and kicks, like something frantic, until Felix, with a bound forward, suddenly captured him, and dragged him back, still tearing and crunching the paper.

'For shame! Be quiet! You are heard all over the place.-Shut the door.'

The door was shut by Wilmet, while Bernard stood quailing under the stern face, strong hand, and tone of displeasure in which Felix demanded, 'What is the meaning of this?'

'That Bernard refuses to wear Lance's outgrown clothes,' said Wilmet.

'Do you mean that this is the cause of this disgraceful outbreak?'

'I-don't see why-' growled Bernard, 'why I should wear everybody's beastly old things.'

'It is right you should hear the whole, Felix,' said Wilmet. 'When I showed him that Lance would have some still shabbier clothes of Clement's altered for him, he said if Lance chose to be a snob, he would not. Lance answered that it was a choice between that and petticoats; and then he fell into this extraordinary state, when I can only hope he did not know what he was saying or doing.'

'He was drawing me,' bellowed Bernard, 'drawing me in his brute of a book!' and he was so infuriated, that words never before heard by his sister followed, as he quivered and stamped even under Felix's grasp, which at length forced him into desisting; but the command, 'Go up to your room this instant,' could only be carried out by main force, amid tremendous kicking and struggling, Felix carrying him, and Wilmet following to unfasten the hands that clutched at the rail; while Lance stood aghast at one door, and Cherry in an agony at another, and Stella crept into a corner and hid her face in terror.

'Well, we never had the like of this before!' said Felix, coming down, having locked him in, and heard him begin to bounce about the barrack, like prisoners in the breaking-out frenzy. 'Can it be all about the clothes?'

'I don't think you know what a grievance the having to take to old ones has always been to him, poor little boy!' said Cherry, very nearly crying, for Bernard was so much her own child that in spite of his having cast her off she was in full instinct of defence; 'and he dislikes Lance's most of all, because of the Cathedral peculiarities.'

'Ah! you have always humoured him by taking off that chorister's frill,' said Wilmet; 'but there could be no objection to those trousers. They were almost new when Fulbert left them, and Lance has only had them for best one winter.'

Felix could not help laughing. 'Long had she worn, and now Belinda wears,' he quoted. 'My dear Mettle, the effect is better than the detail. You should spare us the pedigree, however respectable.'

'Well, I said nothing about it,' said Wilmet. 'Was it what you said about petticoats, Lance?'

'Lance does tease and aggravate that child unbearably!' exclaimed Cherry, too much vexed not to be relieved to turn her blame upon somebody, 'and it is very unkind of him, for he knows Bernard cannot bear to be laughed at.'

'Hush! Cherry,' said Wilmet; 'if Lance did, he didn't mean it. It has been quite too much-'

'Indeed it has, said Felix. 'You had better lie down at once, Lance.'

A good deal more than Bernard's outbreak had gone to the pain and dizziness that prevented Lance from even attempting to reply to Cherry's accusation, but made him turn quietly back into his room; while Felix was obliged to hurry downstairs again; and Alda made her frequent remark that 'those boys were really unbearable.'

'Poor Lance! it was not his fault, said Wilmet.

'You don't know, Wilmet!' said Cherry indignantly. 'I did hope that when he came home, my poor little Bernard might get better managed- he used to be so fond of him; but he has done nothing but worry and laugh at him, and I don't at all wonder it has come to this. I shall go up and see about the poor little fellow.'