Read Ebook: Louis' School Days: A Story for Boys by May E J Edith J

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Ebook has 1855 lines and 87276 words, and 38 pages

"And a very foolish one, sometimes," said Louis. "Can't you get somebody else to show you?"

"Goodness gracious!" cried Churchill, "who do you think would do it now? and no one does it so well as you. Come, I say--come now--that's a good fellow,--now do."

"But how is it that you want to learn your lesson now," asked Louis? "Won't the evening do?"

"No; Dr. Wilkinson has given me leave to go out with my uncle this afternoon, if I learn this and say it to old Norton before I go; and I am sure I shan't get it done if you don't help me."

"I cannot," said poor Louis.

"Now I know you're too good-natured to let me lose this afternoon's fun. Come, you might have told me half."

And against his better judgment, Louis spent half an hour in hearing this idle youth a lesson, which, with a little extra trouble he might easily have mastered himself in three quarters of an hour.

"Thank you, Louis, you're a capital fellow; I know it now, don't I?"

"I think so," replied Louis; "and now you must not talk to me."

"What are you doing?" said Churchill, looking at his book; "oh, 'Kenrick's Greek Exercises.' If I can't tell you, I can help you to something that will. Here's a key." As he spoke, he took down the identical book taken from Harrison on the day of Louis' arrival, and threw it on the table before him.

"Is that a key?" asked Louis, opening the book; "put it back, Harry, I cannot use it."

"Why not?"

"It would not be right. Oh no! I will not, Churchill; put it up."

"How precise you are!" said Churchill; "it's quite a common thing for those who can get them--Thompson and Harcourt always use one."

"Thompson ought to be ashamed of himself," cried Louis, "to be trying for a prize, and use a key."

"Well, so he ought, but you won't get a prize if you begin now, and try till breaking-up day; so you hurt nobody, and get yourself out of a scrape. Don't be a donkey, Louis."

When Churchill left him alone Louis looked at the title-page, and felt for an instant strongly tempted to avail himself of the assistance of the book; but something checked him, and he laid his arms suddenly on the table, and buried his face on them. A heavy hand laid on his shoulder roused him from this attitude; and looking up, with his eyes full of tears, he found Hamilton and Trevannion standing beside him.

"What's the matter, Louis?" said the former.

"I have so much to do;--I--I've been very careless and idle," stammered Louis.

"I can readily believe that," said Hamilton.

"A candid confession, at any rate," remarked Trevannion.

"And do you imagine that your brains will be edified by coming in contact with these books?" asked Hamilton. "What have you to do?"

"I have this exercise to re-write, and my Greek to learn,--and--and--twenty lines of Homer to write out. I can't do all now--I shall have to stay in this afternoon."

"I should think that more than probable," said Trevannion.

"What have we here?" said Hamilton, taking up the key. "Hey! what! Louis! Is this the way you are going to cheat your masters?"

"Pray don't think it?" said Louis, eagerly.

"If you use keys, I have done with you."

"Indeed I did not,--I never do,--I wasn't going. One of the boys left it here. I am sure I did not mean to do so," cried Louis in great confusion.

"Put it back," said Hamilton, gravely, "and then I will go over your lessons with you, and see if I can make you understand them better."

"Thank you, thank you,--how kind you are!" said poor Louis, who hastily put the dangerous book away, and then sat down.

Hamilton smiled, and remarked, "It is but fair that one should be assisted who loses his character in playing knight errant for all those who need, or fancy they need, his good services: but, Louis, you are very wrong to give up so much of your time to others; your time does not belong to yourself; your father did not send you here to assist Dr. Wilkinson--or, rather, I should say, to save a set of idle boys the trouble of doing their own work. There is a vast difference between weakness and good-nature; but now to business."

Trevannion withdrew with a book to the window, and Hamilton sat down by Louis, and took great pains to make him give his mind to his business; and so thoroughly did he succeed with his docile pupil, that, although he had come in rather late, all, with the exception of the imposition, was ready for Mr. Danby by the time the dinner-bell rang.

Louis overwhelmed Hamilton with the expression of his gratitude, and again and again laid his little hand on that of his self-instituted tutor. Hamilton did not withdraw his hand, though he never returned the pressure, nor made any reply to Louis' thanks, further than an abrupt admonition from time to time to "mind what he was about," and to "go on."

Several inquiries were made at the open window after Louis, but all were answered by Trevannion, and our hero was left undisturbed to his studies.

That evening Louis had the satisfaction of being seated near his friend Hamilton, who, with a good-natured air of authority, kept him steadily at work until his business was properly concluded. Unhappily for Louis, Hamilton was not unfrequently with the doctor in the evenings, or he might generally have relied on his protection and assistance: however, for the next two or three days, Louis steadily resisted all allurements to leave his own lesson until learned; and, in consequence, was able to report to Hamilton the desirable circumstance of his having gained two places in his class.

The bridal day came.--No need to descant on the weather. The sun shone as brightly as could be desired, and as the interesting procession passed under the green bowers, cheer after cheer rose on the air, handfuls of flowers were trodden under the horses' feet, and hats, by common consent, performed various somersaults some yards above their owners' heads.

There was a long watch till the carriages returned, and the same scene was enacted and repeated, when the single vehicle rolled away from the door; and the last mark of honor having been paid, the party dispersed over the large playground, each one in search of his own amusement. Louis wandered away by himself, and enjoyed a quiet hour unmolested, and tried, with the help of his little hymn-book, and thinking over old times, to bring back some of his former happy thoughts. There were more than ordinary temptations around him, and he felt less able to resist them; and this little rest from noise and hurry was to him very grateful. When, at length, a little party found out his retreat and begged him to join in a game of "hocky," he complied with a light and merry heart, freer from that restless anxiety to which he had been lately so much subject.

In the afternoon, determining to let nothing interfere with the learning of his lessons, Louis sat down in the school-room to business. There were but two persons besides himself in the room, one of whom was an usher, who was writing a letter, and the other, his school-fellow Ferrers. The latter was sitting on the opposite side of the same range of desks Louis had chosen, very intently engaged in the same work which had brought Louis there.

Louis felt very happy in the consciousness that he was foregoing the pleasure of the merry playground for the stern business that his duty had imposed on him; and the noise of his companions' voices, and the soft breezes that came in through the open door leading into the playground, only spurred him on to finish his work as quickly as possible.

"With pleasure," said Louis, jumping up and running into the study; he returned almost immediately with a large atlas, and laid it down on Ferrers' books. He had once more given his close attention to his difficult exercises, when a movement from his companion attracted his notice.

"Did you speak?" he said.

"Will you--oh, never mind, I'll do it myself," muttered Ferrers, rising and going into the class-room himself.

Louis had become again so intent upon his study, that he was hardly aware of the return of his school-fellow, nor did he notice the precipitation with which he hurried into his place, and half hid the book he had brought with him, a book that he imagined to be a key to his exercises, but which, in fact, was a counterpart to that taken away from Harrison, though bound exactly like the one Ferrers had gone for, and so nearly the same size as easily to be mistaken for it in the confusion attendant on the abstraction of it.

Just at this moment, Hamilton, Trevannion, and Salisbury, with one or two more of the first class, entered from the playground, and walked directly across to Ferrers.

Alive to all the disgrace of being found by his class-fellows in possession of a key, and unable to return it unobserved, Ferrers, in the first moment of alarm, tried to push it into the desk at which he was writing, but finding it locked, he stood up with as much self-possession as he could assume, and pretending to be looking among his books and papers, managed, unobserved, to pass the obnoxious volume over to Louis' heap of books, laying it half under one of them. Louis was wholly unconscious of the danger so near him, and did not raise his held from his absorbing occupation when the fresh comers approached the desk.

"Ferrers," said Salisbury, as they came up, "we want your advice on a small matter; come with us into the class-room."

Accordingly Ferrers obeyed, glad to leave the dangerous spot, and Louis was left in undisturbed possession of the apartment for more than half an hour, at the end of which time the party returned from the inner room laughing, and all walked out of doors. Just as they passed out, Mr. Witworth, the usher, approached Louis, and asked him if he could lend him a pencil. Louis laid his pen down, and began to search his pockets for a pencil he knew should be there, when he was startled by the ejaculation of the master:

"Hey!--what!--This is it, is it? So I have found you out, sir."

Louis looked up in alarm. "Found me out, sir?" he said, in a terrified tone: "what have I done?"

"Done!" exclaimed Mr. Witworth,--"done, indeed: what are you doing there?"

"My exercise, sir."

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