it
drowned, over and over and over again, by the cheers of the Sixth and
their partisans, as the crowd suddenly breaks into the field, and the
ball shoots high up in the air?

A catch! Baynes, the odd man, had missed a chance a few overs back from
standing too deep. This time he had crept in close, and saved the Sixth
by one of the neatest low-catches that had ever been seen in a Dominican
match.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A LOWER SCHOOL FESTIVAL.

"I tell you what, Wray," said Oliver one evening about a week after the
match, "I heartily wish this term was over."

"Why, that's just what I heard your young brother say. He is going to
learn the bicycle, he says, in the holidays."

"Oh, it's not the holidays I want," said Oliver. "But somehow things
have gone all wrong. I've been off my luck completely this term."

"Off your luck!--You great discontented, ungrateful bear. Haven't you
got the English prize? Aren't you in the School Eleven? and didn't you
make top score in the match with the Sixth last Saturday? Whatever do
you mean by `off your luck'?"

"Oh, it's not that, you know," said Oliver, pulling a quill pen to bits.
"What I mean is--oh, bother!--a fellow can't explain it."

"So it seems," laughed Wraysford; "but I wish a fellow could, for I've
not a notion what you're driving at."

"Well, I mean I'm not doing much good. There's that young brother of
mine, for instance. What good have I been to him? There have I let him
go and do just what he likes, and not looked after him a bit ever since
he came here."

"And I wager he's got on all the better for not being tied up to your
apron strings. He's a fine honest little chap, is young Greenfield."

"Oh, I dare say; but somehow I don't seem to know as much of him now as
I used to do before he came here."

"That's Loman's fault, I bet you anything," exclaimed Wraysford. "I'm
sure he won't do the kid any good. But Rastle was saying only yesterday
how well Stephen was getting on in class."

"Was he? It's little thanks to me if he is," said Oliver, gloomily.

"And what else have you got to grumble about?" asked his friend.

"Why, you know how I'm out with the Fifth over that affair with Loman.
They all set me down as a coward, and I'm not that."

"Of course you aren't," warmly replied the other. "But, Noll, you told
me a little while ago you didn't care a snap what they thought."

"No more I do, in a way. But it's very uncomfortable."

"Wh