Rejecting all offers of refreshment—the meal which Constance had planned, and Judith prepared, both with so much loving care—Mr. Channing resolved to seek out Butterby at once. In his state of suspense, he could neither wait, nor eat, nor remain still; it would be a satisfaction only to see Butterby, and hear his opinion.

Mr. Huntley accompanied him; scarcely less proud than Hamish would have been, to walk once more arm in arm with Mr. Channing. But, as there is not the least necessity for our going to the police-station, for Mr. Butterby could tell us no more than we already know; we will pay a short visit to Mr. Stephen Bywater.

That gentleman stood in the cloisters, into which he had seduced old Jenkins, the bedesman, having waited for the twilight hour, that he might make sure no one else would be there. Ever since the last day you saw old Jenkins in the cathedral, he had been laid up in his house, with a touch of what he called his “rheumatiz.” Decrepit old fellows were all the bedesmen, monopolizing enough “rheumatiz” between them for half the city. If one was not laid up, another would be, especially in winter. However, old Jenkins had come out again to-day, to the gratification of Mr. Bywater, who had been wanting him. The cloisters were all but dark, and Mr. Ketch must undoubtedly be most agreeably engaged, or he would have shut up before.

“Now then, old Jenkins!” Bywater was saying. “You show me the exact spot, and I’ll give you sixpence for smoke.”

Old Jenkins hobbled to one of the mullioned windows near to the college entrance, and looked over into the dim graveyard. “‘Twas about four or five yards off here,” said he.

“But I want to know the precise spot,” returned Bywater. “Get over, and show me!”

The words made old Jenkins laugh. “Law, sir! me get over there! You might as well ask me to get over the college. How am I to do it?”

“I’ll hoist you up,” said Bywater.

“No, no,” answered the man. “My old bones be past hoisting now. I should never get back alive, once I were propelled over into that graveyard.”

Bywater felt considerably discomfited. “What a weak rat you must be, old Jenkins! Why, it’s nothing!”

“I know it ain’t—for you college gents. ‘Twouldn’t have been much for me when I was your age. Skin and clothes weren’t of much account to me, then.”

“Oh, it’s that, is it?” returned Bywater, contemptuously. “Look here, old Jenkins! if your things come to grief, I’ll get my uncle to look you out some of his old ones. I’ll give you sixpence for baccy, I say!”

The old bedesman shook his head. “If you give me a waggin load of baccy, I couldn’t get over there. You might just as good put a babby in arms on the ground, and tell it to walk!”

“Here! get out of the way for an old muff!” was Bywater’s rejoinder; and in a second he had mounted the window-frame, and dropped into the burial-ground. “Now then, old Jenkins, I’ll go about and you call out when I come to the right spot.”

By these means, Bywater arrived at a solution of the question, where the broken phial was found; old Jenkins pointing out the spot, to the best of his ability. Bywater then vaulted back again, and alighted safe and sound in the cloisters. Old Jenkins asked for his sixpence.

“Why, you did not earn it!” said Bywater. “You wouldn’t get over!”

“A sixpence is always useful to me,” said the old man; “and some of you gents has ‘em in plenty. I ain’t paid much; and Joe, he don’t give me much. ‘Tain’t him; he’d give away his head, and always would—it’s her. Precious close she is with the money, though she earns a sight of it, I know, at that shop of her’n, and keeps Joe like a king. Wine, and all the rest of it, she’s got for him, since he was ill. ‘There’s a knife and fork for ye, whenever ye like to come,’ she says to me, in her tart way. But deuce a bit of money will she give. If it weren’t for one and another friend giving me an odd sixpence now and then, Master Bywater, I should never hardly get any baccy!”

“There; don’t bother!” said Bywater, dropping the coin into his hand.

“Why, bless my heart, who’s this, a prowling in the cloisters at this hour?” exclaimed a well-known cracked voice, advancing upon them with shuffling footsteps. “What do you do here, pray?”

“You would like to know, wouldn’t you, Mr. Calcraft?” said Bywater. “Studying architecture. There!”

Old Ketch gave a yell of impotent rage, and Bywater decamped, as fast as his legs would carry him, through the west door.

Arrived at his home, or rather his uncle’s, where he lived—for Bywater’s paternal home was in a far-away place, over the sea—he went straight up to his own room, where he struck a match, and lighted a candle. Then he unlocked a sort of bureau, and took from it the phial found by old Jenkins, and a smaller piece which exactly fitted into the part broken. He had fitted them in ten times before, but it appeared to afford him satisfaction, and he now sat down and fitted them again.

“Yes,” soliloquized he, as he nursed one of his legs—his favourite attitude—“it’s as sure as eggs. And I’d have had it out before, if that helpless old muff of a Jenkins had been forthcoming. I knew it was safe to be somewhere near the college gates; but it was as well to ask.”

He turned the phial over and over between his eye and the candle, and resumed;

“And now I’ll give Mr. Ger a last chance. I told him the other day that if he’d only speak up like a man to me, and say it was an accident, I’d drop it for good. But he won’t. And find it out, I will. I have said I would from the first, just for my own satisfaction: and if I break my word, may they tar and feather me! Ger will only have himself to thank; if he won’t satisfy me in private, I’ll bring it against him in public. I suspected Mr. Ger before; not but that I suspected another; but since Charley Channing——Oh! bother, though! I don’t want to get thinking of him!”

Bywater locked up his treasures, and descended to his tea. That over, he had enough lessons to occupy him for a few hours, and keep him out of mischief.

Meanwhile Mr. Channing’s interview with the renowned Mr. Butterby had brought forth nothing, and he was walking back home with Mr. Huntley. Mr. Huntley strove to lead his friend’s thoughts into a different channel: it seemed quite a mockery to endeavour to whisper hope for Charley.

“You will resume your own place in Guild Street at once?” he observed.

“To-morrow, please God.”

They walked a few steps further in silence; and then Mr. Channing entered upon the very subject which Mr. Huntley was hoping he would not enter upon. “I remember, you spoke, at Borcette, of having something in view for Hamish, should I be able to attend to business again. What is it?”

“I did,” said Mr. Huntley; “and I am sorry that I did. I spoke prematurely.”

“I suppose it is gone?”

“Well—no; it is not gone,” replied Mr. Huntley, who was above equivocation. “I do not think Hamish would suit the place.”

Mr. Channing felt a little surprised. There were few places that Hamish might not suit, if he chose to exercise his talents. “You thought he would suit then?” he remarked.

“But circumstances have since induced me to alter my opinion,” said Mr. Huntley. “My friend,” he more warmly added to Mr. Channing, “you will oblige me by allowing the subject to drop. I candidly confess to you that I am not so pleased with Hamish as I once was, and I would rather not interfere in placing him elsewhere.”

“How has he offended you? What has he done?”

“Nay, that is all I will say. I could not help giving you a hint, to account for what you might have thought caprice. Hamish has not pleased me, and I cannot take him by the hand. There, let it rest.”

Mr. Channing was content to let it rest. In his inmost heart he entertained no doubt that the cause of offence was in some way connected with Mr. Huntley’s daughter. Hamish was poor: Ellen would be rich; therefore it was only natural that Mr. Huntley should consider him an ineligible parti for her. Mr. Channing did not quite see what that had to do with the present question; but he could not, in delicacy, urge it further.

They found quite a levee when they entered: the Reverend Mr. Pye, Mr. Galloway—who had called in with Arthur upon leaving the office for the night—and William Yorke. All were anxious to welcome and congratulate Mr. Channing; and all were willing to tender a word of sympathy respecting Charles. Possibly Mr. Yorke had also another motive: if so, we shall come to it in due time.

Mr. Pye stayed only a few minutes. He did not say a word about the seniorship, neither did Mr. Channing to him. What, indeed, could either of them say? The subject was unpleasant on both sides; therefore it was best avoided. Tom, however, thought differently.

“Papa!” he exclaimed, plunging into it the moment Mr. Pye’s back was turned, “you might have taken the opportunity to tell him that I shall leave the school. It is not often he comes here.”

“But you are not going to leave the school,” said Mr. Channing.

“Yes, I am,” replied Tom, speaking with unmistakable firmness. “Hamish made me stay on, until you came home; and I don’t know how I have done it. It is of no use, papa! I cannot put up with the treatment—the insults I receive. It was bad enough to lose the seniorship, but that is as nothing to the other. And to what end should I stop, when my chance of the exhibition is gone?”

“It is not gone, Tom. Mr. Huntley—as word was written to me at Borcette—has declined it for his son.”

“It is not the less gone for me, papa. Let me merit it as I will, I shall not be allowed to receive it, any more than I did the seniorship. I am out of favour, both with master and boys; and you know what that means, in a public school. If you witnessed the way I am served by the boys, you would be the first to say I must leave.”

“What do they do?” asked Mr. Channing.

“They do enough to provoke my life out of me,” said Tom, falling into a little of his favourite heat. “Were it myself only that they attacked, I might perhaps stop and brave it out; but it is not so. They go on against Arthur in a way that would make a saint mad.”

“Pooh, pooh!” interposed Mr. Gallo............