Page:Jaspar Tristram (1899).djvu/22

 school-bell began to clang—he could hear the rope as it rushed up and down—desk-lids banged and bed-time, it appeared, was come.

His neighbour on the form—the boy he had heard called Piggy—had already told him he was to sleep in the ‘Long Room,’ and now was good enough, not only to show him the way but even, when they got there, to point out which of the many beds was his. So, falling upon his knees on the narrow strip of gaudy drugget which covered the bare and well-scrubbed boards at the side, he buried his face and hands in the hollow of the knot-patterned counterpane, and began to say his prayers. He found no little comfort in the thought that at any rate the God he was praying to was the same whom he had had at home; yet after the consolation was exhausted, which he had at first derived from this reflection, he still knelt; for the longer he so remained, the longer, he felt, he was putting off the moment, the steady approach of which he had now for some while past been considering with dread, when, for the first time in his life, he would have to undress in public. However, at last he got up and, seating himself upon the edge of his bed, began slowly to take off his things. But having pulled off his jacket and waistcoat and undone his tie and shirt-collar, he stopped; under pretence of looking about he could still perhaps gain a few minutes. As for the rest, they were already most of them in bed; but five or six, including Orr, were looking on and applauding Els who, mounted upon his bed, was apparently trying to see how high by jumping he could send his nightshirt fluttering above his head.

‘I back you won’t do that, Dick!’ he cried to his friend, as, breathless, fora moment he paused. And then Jaspar after a last hesitation—for once he had taken it off he would never again be able to say of anything: ‘This was put on at home!’—pulled his jersey over his head. As he did so he heard a low hurried cry of ‘Cavé, cavé!’ and when once more he was able to see, the Doctor was in the room on which a sudden quiet had fallen. As for Els, he was lying