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Tell England: A Study in a Generation

by Ernest Raymond · English · Gutenberg #15033 · 653,347 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Tell England: A Study in a Generation

Author: Ernest Raymond


        
Release date: February 13, 2005 [eBook #15033]
                Most recently updated: December 14, 2020

Language: English

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TELL ENGLAND

_A Study in a Generation_


By ERNEST RAYMOND



NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
1922




     _For all emotions that are tense and strong,
        And utmost knowledge, I have lived for these--
      Lived deep, and let the lesser things live long,
        The everlasting hills, the lakes, the trees,
      Who'd give their thousand years to sing this song
        Of Life, and Man's high sensibilities,
      Which I into the face of Death can sing--
      O Death, then poor and disappointed thing--

           Strike if thou wilt, and soon; strike breast and brow;
           For I have lived: and thou canst rob me now
           Only of some long life that ne'er has been.
           The life that I have lived, so full, so keen,
           Is mine! I hold it firm beneath thy blow
           And, dying, take it with me where I go._




  CONTENTS


  A PROLOGUE BY PADRE MONTY


  BOOK I: FIVE GAY YEARS OF SCHOOL

  _Part I: Tidal Reaches_

 Chapter
      I  RUPERT RAY BEGINS HIS STORY
     II  RUPERT OPENS A GREAT WAR
    III  AWFUL ROUT OF RAY
     IV  THE PREFECTS GO OVER TO THE ENEMY
      V  CHEATING
     VI  AN INTERLUDE

  _Part II: Long, Long Thoughts_

    VII  CAUGHT ON THE BEATEN TRACK
   VIII  THE FREEDHAM REVELATIONS
     IX  WATERLOO OPENS
      X  WATERLOO CONTINUES: THE CHARGE AT THE END OF THE DAY
     XI  THE GREAT MATCH
    XII  CASTLES AND BRICK-DUST


  BOOK II: AND THE REST--WAR

  _Part I: "Rangoon" Nights_

      I  THE ETERNAL WATERWAY
     II  PADRE MONTY AND MAJOR HARDY COME ABOARD
    III  "C. OF E., NOW AND ALWAYS"
     IV  THE VIGIL
      V  PENANCE
     VI  MAJOR HARDY AND PADRE MONTY FINISH THE VOYAGE

  _Part II: The White Heights_

    VII  MUDROS, IN THE ISLE OF LEMNOS
   VIII  THE GREEN ROOM
     IX  PROCEEDING FORTHWITH TO GALLIPOLI
      X  SUVLA AND HELLES AT LAST
     XI  AN ATMOSPHERE OF SHOCKS AND SUDDEN DEATH
    XII  SACRED TO WHITE
   XIII  "LIVE DEEP, AND LET THE LESSER THINGS LIVE LONG"
    XIV  THE NINETEENTH OF DECEMBER
     XV  TRANSIT
    XVI  THE HOURS BEFORE THE END
   XVII  THE END OF GALLIPOLI
  XVIII  THE END OF RUPERT'S STORY



TELL ENGLAND



A PROLOGUE BY PADRE MONTY


§1

In the year that the Colonel died he took little Rupert to see the
swallows fly away. I can find no better beginning than that.

When there devolved upon me as a labour of love the editing of
Rupert Ray's book, "Tell England," I carried the manuscript into my
room one bright autumn afternoon, and read it during the fall of a
soft evening, till the light failed, and my eyes burned with the
strain of reading in the dark. I could hardly leave his ingenuous
tale to rise and turn on the gas. Nor, perhaps, did I want such
artificial brightness. There are times when one prefers the
twilight. Doubtless the tale held me fascinated because it revealed
the schooldays of those boys whom I met in their young manhood, and
told afresh that wild old Gallipoli adventure which I shared with
them. Though, sadly enough, I take Heaven to witness that I was not
the idealised creature whom Rupert portrays. God bless them, how
these boys will idealise us!

Then again, as Rupert tells you, it was I who suggested to him the
writing of his story. And well I recall how he demurred, asking:

"But what am I to write about?" For he was always diffident and
unconscious of his power.

"Is Gallipoli nothing to write about?" I retorted. "And you can't
have spent five years at a great public school like Kensingtowe
without one or two sensational things. Pick them out and let us have
them. For whatever the modern theorists say, the main duty of a
story-teller is certainly to tell stories."

"But I thought," he broke in, "that you're always maintaining that
the greatest fiction should be occupied with Subjective Incident."

"Don't interrupt, you argumentative child," I said (you will find
Rupert is impertinent enough in one place to suggest that I have a
tendency to be rude and a tendency to hold forth). "Surely the ideal
story must contain the maximum of Objective Incident with the
maximum of Subjective Incident. Only give us the exciting events of
your schooldays, and describe your thoughts as they happened, and
you will unconsciously reveal what sort of scoundrelly characters
you and your friends were. And when you get to the Gallipoli part,
well, you can give us chiefly your thoughts, for Gallipoli, as far
as dramatic incident is concerned, is well able to shift for
itself."

Little wonder that I was fascinated to read Rupert's final
manuscript. And, when I had finished the last words, I
announced aloud a weighty decision: "We must have a Prologue,
Rupert,"--though, to be sure, my study was empty at the time--"and
it must give pictures of what your three heroes were like, when they
were small, abominable boys."

And thereafter I busied myself in seeking information of the early
childhood of Rupert Ray, Archibald Pennybet, and Edgar Gray Doe. Not
without misgiving do I offer the result of these researches, for I
fear all the time lest my self-conscious hand should profane
Rupert's artless narrative.

In the year that the Colonel died he took little Rupert to see the
swallows fly away. Colonel Ray was a stately, grey-bearded
grandfather; and Rupert his flushed and blue-eyed grandson of six
years old; and the two stood side by side and watched. Behind them
lay the French town, Boulogne; beside them went the waters of the
French river, the Liane. Suddenly Rupert, who had kept his blue eyes
on a sky but little bluer, cried out excitedly: "There they are!"
For him at that moment the most interesting thing in the world was
the flight of swallows overhead. The Colonel, also, looked at the
birds till they were out of sight, and then, after keeping silence
awhile, uttered a remark which was rather sent in pursuit of the
birds than addressed to his young companion. "I shall not see the
swallows again," he said.

Colonel Rupert Ray was no ordinary person. He was one of those of
whom tales are told; and such people are never ordinary. The most
treasured of these tales is the story of the swallows; and it goes
on to tell, as you would expect, how the Colonel died that year,
before the swallows came flying north and home again. He was buried,
while little Rupert and Rupert's mother looked on, in that untidy
corner of the Boulogne Cemetery, where many another English half-pay
officer had been laid before him.

Of course the burial of the Colonel was very sad for Rupert; but he
soon forgot it all in the excitement of preparing for the journey
back to London. The Colonel, you see, had known that his old life
would break up soon, and had summoned from their home in London the
widow and child of his favourite son, "that Rupert, the best of the
lot," as he used to call him. And now the Colonel was dead. So his
grandson, the last of the Rupert Rays, could look forward to all the
jolly thrills of steaming across the Channel to Folkestone and
bowling in a train to London. Really life was an excellent thing.

The day of the venturesome voyage began with excited sleeplessness
and glowing health, and ended with a headache and great tiredness.
There was the bustle of embarkation on to the boat; the rattle and
bang of falling luggage; the jangle of French and English tongues;
the unstraining of mighty ropes; the "hoot! hoot!" from the funnel,
a side-splitting incident; the _suff-suff-lap-suff_ of the
ploughed-up sea; the spray of the Channel, which sprinkling one's
cheeks, caused one to roar with laughter, till more moderation was
enjoined; the incessant throb of the engines; the vision of white
cliffs, and the excitement among the passengers; the headache; the
landing on a black old pier; the privilege of guarding the luggage
by sitting upon as much of one trunk as six years' growth of boy
will cover, and pressing firmly upon two other trunks with either
hand, while Mrs. Ray (that capable lady) changed francs into
shillings; there was the wearisome and rolling train-journey,
wherein one slept, first against the window and then against the
black sleeve of an unknown gentleman; and lastly there was the
realisation that pale and sunny France had withdrawn into the past
to make room for pale and smutty London.

Now the Captain of all these manoeuvres, as the meanest
intelligence will have observed, was Mrs. Ray. Mrs. Ray was Rupert's
mother, and as beautiful as every mother must be, who has an only
son, and is a widow. Moreover she was a perfect teller of stories:
all really beautiful mothers are. And, for years after, she used at
evening time to draw young Rupert against her knees, and tell him
the traditional stories of that old half-pay officer at Boulogne.
And grandfather was indeed a hero in these stories. We suspect--but
who can sound the artful depths of a woman who is at once young,
lovely, a mother, and a widow?--that Mrs. Ray, knowing that Rupert
could never recall his father, was determined that at least one
soldierly figure should loom heroic in his childish memories. She
would tell again and again how he asked repeatedly, as he lay dying,
for "that Rupert, the best of the lot." And her son would say: "I
s'pose he meant Daddy, mother." "Yes," she would answer. "You see,
you were all Ruperts: Grandfather Rupert Ray, Daddy Rupert Ray, and
Sonny Rupert Ray, my own little Sonny Ray." (Mothers talk in this
absurd fashion, and Mrs. Ray was the chief of such offenders.)

But quite the masterpiece of all her tales was this. One summer
morning, when the Boulogue promenade was bright and crowded and
lively, the Colonel was seated with his grandson beside him. A
little distance away sat Rupert's mother, who was just about as shy
of the Colonel as the Colonel was shy of her (which fact accounts,
probably, for Rupert Ray's growing up into the shy boy we knew).
Well, all of a sudden, the boy got up, stood immediately in front of
his grandsire, and leaned forward against his knees. There was no
mistaking the meaning in the child's eyes; they said plainly: "This
is entirely the best attitude for story-telling, so please."

The officer, with military quickness, summed up the perilous
situation on his front; he had suffered himself to be bombarded by a
pair of patient eyes. And now he must either acknowledge his
incompetence by a shameful retreat, or he must stir up the dump of
his imagination and see what stories it contained. So with no small
apprehension, he drew upon his inventive genius.

A wonderful story resulted--wonderful as a prophetic parable of
things which the Colonel would not live to see. Perhaps it was only
coincidence that it should be so; perhaps the approach of death
endowed the old gentleman with the gift of dim prophecy--did he not
know that he would follow the swallows away?--perhaps all the Rays,
when they stand in that shadow, possess a mystic vision. Certainly
the boy Rupert--but there! I knew I was in danger of spoiling his
story.

If the Colonel's tale this morning was wonderful to the listener,
the author suspected that he was plagiarising. The hero was a knight
of peculiar grace, who sustained the spotless name of Sir R----
R----. He was not very handsome, having hair that was neither gold
nor brown, and a brace of absurdly sea-blue eyes. But he was
distinguished by many estimable qualities; he was English, for
example, and not French, very brave, very sober, and quite fond of
an elderly relation. And one day he was undoubtedly (although the
Colonel's conscience pricked him) plunging on foot through a dense
forest to the aid of a fellow-knight who had been captured and
imprisoned.

"What was the other knight like?" interrupted Rupert.

"What, indeed?" echoed the Colonel, temporising till he should
evolve an answer. "Yes, that's a very relevant question. Well, he
was a good deal fairer than Sir R---- R----, but about the same age,
only with brown eyes, and he was a very nice little boy--young
fellow, I mean."

"What was his name?"

"His name? Oh, well--" and here the Colonel, feeling with some taste
that "Smith," or "Jones," or "Robinson" was out of place in a forest
whose mediæval character was palpable, and being quite unable at
such short notice to recall any other English names, gained time by
the following ingenious detail: "Oh, well, he lost his good name by
being captured. And then--and then to his aid came the stalwart Sir
R----, with his sword drawn, and his--er--"

"Revoller," suggested the listener.

"Yes, his revolver fixed to his chain-mail--"

In this strain the Colonel proceeded, wondering whether such
abominable nonsense was interesting the child, whose gaze had now
begun to reach out to sea. In reality Rupert was thrilled, and did
not like to disturb the flow of a story so affecting. But the
strength of his feelings was too much. He was obliged to suggest an
amendment.

"Are you sure I didn't go upon a horse?" he asked.

"Why, of course, the unknown knight in question did, and the sheath
of his sword clanked against his horse's side, as he dashed through
the thicket."

"Had the fair-haired knight anything to eat all this time?"

This important problem was duly settled, and several others which
were seen to be involved in such an intricate story; and a very
happy conclusion was reached, when Mrs. Ray decided that it was time
for Rupert to be taken home. She was about to lead him away, when
the Colonel, who seldom spoke to her much, abruptly murmured:

"He has that Rupert's eyes."

For a moment she was quite taken aback, and then timorously replied:
"Yes, they are very blue."

"Very blue," repeated the Colonel.

Mrs. Ray thereupon felt she must obviate an uncomfortable silence,
and began with a nervous laugh:

"He was born when we were in Geneva, you know, and we used to call
him 'our mountain boy,' saying that he had brought a speck of the
mountain skies away in his eyes."

The Colonel conceded a smile, but addressed his reply to the child:
"A mountain boy, is he?" and, placing his hand on Rupert's head, he
turned the small face upward, and watched it break into a smile.
"Well, well. A mountain boy, eh?--from the lake of Geneva. H'm. _Il
a dans les yeux un coin du lac._"

At this happy description the tears of pleasure sprang to the
foolish eyes of Mrs. Ray, while Rupert, thinking with much wisdom
that all the conditions were favourable, gazed up into the Colonel's
face, and fired his last shot.

"What really was the fair-haired knight's name?"

"Perhaps you will know some day," answered the Colonel, half
playfully, half wearily.


§2

In the course of the same summer Master Archibald Pennybet, of
Wimbledon, celebrated his eighth birthday. He celebrated it by a
riotous waking-up in the sleeping hours of dawn; he celebrated it by
a breakfast which extended him so much that his skin became
unbearably tight; and then, in a new white sailor-suit and brown
stockings turned over at the calves to display a couple of
magnificent knees, he celebrated some more of it in the garden.
There on the summer lawn he stood, unconsciously deliberating how
best to give new expression to the personality of Archibald
Pennybet. He was dark, gloriously built, and possessed eyes that
lazily drooped by reason of their heavy lashes; and, I am sorry to
say, he evoked from a boudoir window the gurgling admiration of his
fashionable mother, who, while her hair was being dressed, allowed
her glance to swing from her hand-mirror, which framed a gratifying
vision of herself, to the window, which framed a still more
gratifying vision of her son. "He gets his good looks from me," she
thought. And, having noticed the drooping of his eyelids,
over-weighted with lashes, she brought her hand-mirror into play
again. "He is lucky," she added, "to have inherited those lazy eyes
from me."

Soon Archie retired in the direction of the kitchen-garden. The
kitchen-garden, with its opportunities of occasional refreshment
such as would not add uncomfortably to his present feeling of
tightness, was the place for a roam. Five minutes later he was
leaning against the wire-netting of the chicken-run, and offering an
old cock, who asked most pointedly for bread, a stone. To know how
to spend a morning was no easier on a birthday than on any ordinary
day.

Suddenly, however, he overheard the gardener mentioning a murder
which had been committed on Wimbledon Common, a fine tract of wild
jungle and rolling prairie, that lay across the main road. Without
waiting to prosecute inquiries which would have told him that,
although the confession was only in the morning papers, the murder
was twenty years old, he escaped unseen and set his little white
figure on a walk through the common. He was out to see the blood.

But, for a birthday, it was a disappointing morning. He discovered
for the first time that Wimbledon Common occupied an interminable
expanse of country; and really there was nothing unusual this
morning about its appearance, or about the looks of the people whom
he passed. So he gave up his quest and returned homeward. Then it
was that his lazy eyes looked down a narrow, leafy lane that ran
along the high wall of his own garden. Now all Wimbledon suspects
that this lane was designed by the Corporation as a walk for lovers.
There is evidence of the care and calculation that one spends on a
chicken-run. For the Corporation, knowing the practice of lovers,
has placed in the shady recesses of the lane a seat where these
comical people can intertwine. At the sight of the lane and the
seat, Master Pennybet immediately decided how he would occupy his
afternoon. He would move that seat along his garden wall, till it
rested beneath some ample foliage where he could lie hidden. Then he
would wait the romantic moments of the evening.

This idea proved so exciting that the luncheon of which he partook
was (for a birthday) regrettably small. And no sooner was it
finished than he rushed into the lane, and addressed his splendid
muscles to removing the seat.

To begin with he tried pushing. This failed. The more he pushed the
more his end of the seat went up into the air, while the other
remained fast in the ground. The only time he succeeded in making
the seat travel at all it went so fast that it laid him on his
stomach in the lane. So he tried pulling from the other end. This
was only partially successful. The seat moved towards him with
jerks, at one time arriving most damnably on his shins, and at
another throwing him into a sitting position on to the ground. And
there is a portion of small boys which is very sensitive to stony
ground. At these repeated checks the natural child in Mr. Pennybet
caused his eyes to become moist, whereupon the strong and
unconquerable man in him choked back a sob of temper, and pulled the
seat with a passionate determination. I tell you, such indomitable
grit will always get its way, and the seat was well lodged against
Mr. Pennybet's wall and beneath his green fastness, before the
afternoon blushed into the lovers' hour. He returned into his
garden, and, climbing up the wall by means of the mantling ivy,
reached his chosen observation-post. Through curtains of greenery he
watched the arrival of a pair of lovers, and held his breath, as
they seated themselves beneath him.

They were an even more ridiculous couple than their kind usually
are. And, when the gentleman squeezed the lady, she laughed so
foolishly that Archie Pennybet was within an ace of forgetting
himself and heartily laughing too. It was worse still, when they
began the pernicious practice of "rubbing noses." For the operation
was so new and unexpected, and withal so congenial to Archie, that
he risked discovery by craning forward to study it. He watched with
jaws parted in a wide gape of amazement, and then said to himself:
"Well, I'm damned!" There is but one step (I am told) from rubbing
noses to the real business of the kiss. And it was when the
gentleman brought the lady's lips into contact with his own, and the
peculiar sound was heard in the lane, that Mr. Pennybet's moment had
come.

"Hem! Hem! Oh, I say!" he suggested loudly, and sought safety by
slipping rapidly down his side of the wall, scratching his hands and
bare knees as he fell.

This fine triumph had been at a cost. Archie surveyed himself. His
new suit was clearly disreputable. And, in his mother's eyes, the
one crime punishable by whipping was to make a new suit
disreputable. The more he studied the extent of the damage, the more
he felt convinced that, in the expiation of this potty little
offence, his body would be commandeered to play a painful and rather
passive part.

His brain, therefore, worked rapidly and well. It was more than
possible, thought he, that his mother's sympathy could be induced to
exceed her indignation. She was really an affectionate woman; and
this was the line to go upon. So he squeezed the scratches in his
knees to expedite the issue of blood, and bravely entered the house.

"Mother," he called, introducing suitable pathos into his tones,
"Mother, I've fallen all down the wall!"

This effective opening, should it seem successful, it was his
intention to follow up with seasonable allusions to his birthday.
But alas! one glimpse of Mrs. Pennybet's face when she saw his suit,
showed him the folly of remaining on the scene, and with the speed
of a fawn, he was out in the garden, and up an elm tree, swaying
about like a crow's nest. And there, a minute later, was Mrs.
Pennybet standing below, her skirts held up in one hand, a small
cane in the other.

"Come down, Archie," she said. "Come down."

"Not a bit of it," replied her son. "You come up!"

       *       *       *       *       *

At least Mrs. Pennybet, a vivacious _raconteuse_, always declared to
me that such was his reply. I do not trust these mothers, however,
and regard it as a piece of her base embroidery. At any rate, it is
certain that her effort to secure Archie for punishment was quite
unsuccessful. And, an hour afterwards, a small figure came quietly
down the trunk of the tree, and, entering the room where his mother
was, sat quickly in a big arm-chair, and held on tightly to its
arms. This position prevented access to that particular area of
Archie Pennybet, which, in the view of himself, his mother, and all
sound conservatives, must be exposed, if corporal punishment is to
be the standard thing. Mrs. Pennybet, good woman, admitted her
defeat, and kissed him repeatedly, while he still held himself tight
in his chair.

Such was Archie Pennybet, whom Mrs. Pennybet considered a remarkably
fine boy, and the son of a remarkably fine woman. In this battle of
wits he undoubtedly won. And it is a fact that throughout life he
made a point of winning, as all shall see, who read Rupert Ray's
story.

He was a mischievous, tumbling scamp, I suppose; but what are we to
say? All young animals gambol, and are saucy. Only this morning I
was watching a lamb butt its mother in the ribs, and roll in the
grass, and dirty its wool--the graceless young rascal!


§3

But come, we are keeping Edgar Gray Doe waiting.

If you have ever steamed up the Estuary of the Fal, that stately
Cornish river, and gazed with rapture at the lofty and thick-wooded
hills, through which the wide stream runs, you have probably seen on
the eastern bank the splendid mansion of Graysroof. You have admired
its doric façade and the deep, green groves that embrace it on every
side. Perhaps it has been pointed out to you as the home of Sir
Peter Gray, the once-famous Surrey bowler, and the parent of a whole
herd of young cricketing Grays.

It was in this palatial dwelling that little Edgar Gray Doe awoke to
a consciousness of himself, and of many other remarkable things;
such things as the broad, silver mouth of the Fal; the green slopes,
on which his house stood; the rather fearsome woods that surrounded
it; and, above all, the very obvious fact that he was not as other
boys. For instance, his cricketing cousins, these Gray boys, were
sons with a visible mother and father, and, in being so, appeared to
conform to a normal condition, while _he_ was a nephew with an uncle
and aunt. Again these fellows were blue-eyed and drab, and, as such,
were decent and reasonable, while _he_ was brown-eyed and
preposterously fair-haired. To be sure, it was only his oval face
that saved him from the horrible indignity of being called
"Snowball."

One morning of that perfect summer, which was the sixth of Rupert
Ray, and the eighth of Archie Pennybet, Edgar Gray Doe felt some
elation at the prospect of a visit from a very imposing friend. This
person was staying down the stream at Falmouth; and he and his
mother had been invited by Lady Gray to spend the day at Graysroof.
His name was Archie Pennybet. And the power of his personality lay
in these remarkable qualities: first, he enjoyed the distinction of
being two years older than Master Doe; secondly, he had a genius for
games that thrilled, because they were clearly sin; and thirdly, his
hair was dark and glossy, so he could legitimately twit other people
with being albinos.

And to-day this exciting creature would have to devote himself
entirely to Edgar Doe, as the Gray boys were safely billeted in
public and preparatory schools, and there was thus no sickening
possibility of his chasing after them, or going on to their side
against Edgar.

Edgar Doe knew that Mrs. Pennybet and Archie were coming in a
row-boat from Falmouth, and it was a breathless moment when he saw
them stepping on to the Graysroof landing-stage, and Lady Gray
walking down the sloping lawn to meet them.

"Hallo, kid," shouted Archie. "Mother, there's Edgar!"

Rather startled by this sudden notoriety, Edgar approached the new
arrivals.

"Hallo, kid," repeated Master Pennybet; and then stopped, his supply
of greetings being exhausted.

"Hallo," answered Edgar, slowly and rather shyly, for he was two
years younger than anyone present.

"Welcome to the Fal," said Lady Gray to Mrs. Pennybet. "Archie, are
you going to give me a kiss?"

"No," announced Archie firmly. "I don't kiss mother's friends now."

Lady Gray concealed the fact that she thought her guest's little
boy a hateful child, and, having patted his head, sent him off with
Edgar Doe to play in the Day-nursery.

Of course the Master of the Ceremonies in the Day-nursery was Master
Pennybet. Master Doe was his devoted mate. The first game was a
disgusting one, called "Spits." It consisted in the two combatants
facing each other with open umbrellas, and endeavouring to register
points by the method suggested in the title of the game; the
umbrella was a shield, with which to intercept any good shooting.
Luckily for their self-respect in later years, this difficult game
soon yielded place to an original competition, known as "Fire and
Water." You placed a foot-bath under that portable gas-stove which
was in the Day-nursery; you lit all the trivets in the stove to
represent a house on fire; and you had a pail, ready to be filled
from the bathroom, which, need we say, was the fire-station. The
rules provided that the winner was he who could extinguish the
conflagration raging in the foot-bath in the shortest possible time,
and with the least expenditure of water. But the natural desire to
win and to record good times meant that you were apt, in the haste
and enthusiasm of the moment, to miss the bath entirely, and to
flood quite a different part of the nursery. It was this flaw in an
otherwise simple game, which brought the play to an end. Intimations
that an aquatic tourney of some sort was the feature in the
Day-nursery began to leak through to the room below. The competitors
were apprehended and brought for judgment before the ladies, who
were sitting in the garden and watching the Fal as it streamed by to
the sea.

"They had better go and play in the Beach Grove," sighed Lady Gray.

This ruling Archie did not veto or contest, for he had wearied of
indoor amusements, and felt that the well-timbered groves would
afford new avenues for play. So the boys departed like deer among
the trunks of the trees.

It was a cosy conversation which the ladies enjoyed after this. Any
conversation would be cosy that had been reared in the glory of such
a garden, and in the comfort of those lazy chairs. Mrs. Pennybet
began by declaring, as these shameless ladies do, that her hostess's
fair-haired nephew was quite the most beautiful child she had ever
seen; she could hug him all day; nay, she could eat him. And,
thereupon Lady Gray told her the whole story of Edgar Gray Doe; how
his mother had been Sir Peter's sister, and the loveliest woman in
Western Cornwall; how she had paid with her life for Edgar's being;
and how her husband, the chief of lovers, had quickly followed his
young bride.

"They're an emotional lot, these Does," said Lady Gray. "As surely
as they come fair-haired, they are brilliantly romantic and blindly
adoring. And Edgar's every inch a Doe. Anybody can lead him into
mischief. And anybody who likes will do so."

"Oh, I suppose he's troublesome like all boys," suggested Mrs.
Pennybet, with a rapid mental survey of the existence of Archie. "He
will grow into a fine man some day."

"Perhaps," said Lady Gray, staring over the tranquil water of the
Fal, as though it represented the intervening years. "We shall see."

"And Archie," continued Mrs. Pennybet, "though he's a plague now,
will be a brilliant and dominating man, I think. He's not easily
mastered, and I don't believe adverse circumstances will ever beat
him.... Isn't it funny to think that these restless boys are here to
inherit the world? We old fogies"--Mrs. Pennybet laughed, for she
didn't mean what she said--"are really done for and shelved. These
boys are the interesting ones, whose tales have yet to be told."

The speaker dropped her voice, as she found herself moralising; and
Lady Gray perceived that an atmosphere of tender speculation had
risen around their conversation. She turned her face away, and
looked over that part of the inheritable world which met her gaze.
From her feet perfect lawns sloped down to a gracious waterway,
which shuddered occasionally in a gentle wind; on every side
pleasing trees were massed into shady and grateful woods; overhead
the noonday sun lit up a deep-blue sky. Perhaps the sublimity of the
scene played upon her softer emotions. Perhaps all intense beauty is
pathetic, and makes one think of poor illusions and unavailing
dreams. Lady Gray wondered why she could not feel, on this serene
morning, the same confidence in Edgar Doe's future, as her friend
felt in Archie's; why she should rather be conscious of a romantic
foreboding. But she only murmured:

"Yes, we must bow before sovereign youth."

And that was the last word uttered, till the sound of hearty boys'
voices, coming from the trunks of the trees, prompted Mrs. Pennybet
to say cheerfully:

"Here they come, the heirs to the world."

As she spoke, Archie Pennybet, dark and dictatorial, and Edgar Doe,
fair and enthusiastic, came into view.

"Yes," replied Lady Gray, "but only two of them. There are others
they must share it with. Shall we go indoors?"

And indoors or out-of-doors, that was a very delightful day spent at
Graysroof. And, when the sun's rays began to grow ruddy, there came
the pleasant journey down the Estuary to Falmouth Town. Mrs.
Pennybet and her son were rowed homeward by Baptist, that sombre
boatman employed at Graysroof, in Master Doe's own particular boat.
"_The Lady Fal_," men called it, from the dainty conceit that it was
the spouse of the lordly Estuary. Edgar Doe accompanied them, as the
master of his craft.

Nobody talked much during the voyage. Baptist was always too solemn
for speech. Master Doe, on these occasions, liked to dream with one
hand trailing in the water. Master Pennybet, in the common way of
tired children, finished the day in listless woolgathering. And his
mother, recalling the conversation in the stately garden up the
stream, fell to wondering whither these boys were tending.

So the passage down the full and slumbery Fal seemed nearly a
soundless thing. But all the real river-noises were there; the birds
were singing endlessly in the groves; the gulls with their hoarse
language were flying seawards from the mud-flats of Truro; the water
was gently lapping the sides of the boat; and voices could be heard
from the distances higher up and lower down the stream. And behind
all this prattle of the Estuary hung the murmur of the sea.

It was a very quiet boat that unladed the Pennybets on the steps of
a stone pier at Falmouth, and then swung round and carried Edgar up
its own wake. Baptist was a glorious hand with the paddles, and, as
the _Lady Fal_ swept easily over the glassy water, Edgar gazed at
the familiar things coming into view. There, at last, was the huge
house of Graysroof, belittled by the loftiness of the quilted hill,
on whose slope it stood, and by the extent of its surrounding woods.
And there in the water lay mirrored a reflection of house and trees
and hillside. Baptist rested on his oars, and, turning round on his
seat, drank in the loveliness of England and the Fal. His oars
remained motionless for a long time, till he suddenly commented:

"H'm."

This encouraging remark Master Doe interpreted as a willingness to
converse, and he let escape a burst of confidence.

"You know, I like Archie Pennybet very much indeed. In fack, I think
I like him better than anyone else in the world, 'septing of course
my relations."

Watching his hearer nervously to see how he would receive this
important avowal, Master Doe flushed when he saw no signs of emotion
on Baptist's countenance. He didn't like thinking he had made
himself look a fool. Probably Baptist perceived this, for he felt he
must contrive a reply, and, abandoning "H'm" as too uncouth and too
unflavoured with sympathy, gave of his best, muttering:

"Ah, he's one of we."

Then, realising that the sun had gone in a blaze of glory, and that
he must waste no further time in prolonged gossip, he dipped his
blade into the still water, and turned the head of the boat for the
Graysroof bank; and for the things that should be.



BOOK I
FIVE GAY YEARS OF SCHOOL


_Part I: Tidal Reaches_


CHAPTER I

RUPERT RAY BEGINS HIS STORY


§1

"I'm the best-looking person in this room," said Archibald Pennybet.
"Ray's face looks as though somebody had trodden on it, and
Doe's--well, Doe's would be better if it had been trodden on."

It was an early morning of the Kensingtowe Summer Term, and the
three of us, Archie Pennybet, Edgar Gray Doe, and I, Rupert Ray,
were waiting in the Junior Preparation Room at Bramhall House, till
the bell should summon us over the playing fields to morning school.
Kensingtowe, of course, is the finest school in England, and
Bramhall its best house. Now, Pennybet, though not himself
courteous, always insisted that Doe and I should treat him with
proper respect, so, since he was senior and thus magnificent, I'll
begin by describing him.

He was right in saying that he was the handsomest. He was a tall boy
of fifteen years, with long limbs that were saved from any unlovely
slimness by their full-fleshed curves and perfect straightness. His
face, whose skin was as smooth as that of a bathed and anointed
Greek, was crowned by dark hair, and made striking by a pair of
those long-lashed eyes that are always brown. And in character he
was the most remarkable. Though two years our senior, he
deliberately lagged behind the boys of his own age, and remained the
oldest member of our form. Thoughtless masters called him a dunce,
but abler ones knew him to be only idle. And Pennybet cared little
for either opinion. He had schemed to remain in a low form; and that
was enough. It was better to be a field-marshal among the "kids"
than a ranker among his peers. Like Satan, for whom he probably felt
a certain admiration, he found it better to reign in hell than serve
in heaven.

The personal attendants of this splendid sultan consisted of Edgar
Doe and myself. We were not allowed by him to forget that, if he
could total fifteen years, we could only scrape together a bare
thirteen. We were mere children. Doe and I, being thirteen and an
exact number of days, were twins, or we would have been, had it not
been for the divergence of our parentage. We often expressed a wish
that this divergence were capable of remedy. It involved minor
differences. For instance, while Doe's eyes were brown, mine were
blue; and while Doe's hair was very fair, mine was a tedious drab
that had once been gold. Moreover, in place of my wide mouth, Doe
possessed lips that were always parted like those of a pretty girl.
Indeed, if Archie Pennybet was the handsomest of us three, it is
certain that Edgar Gray Doe was the prettiest.

We came to be discussing our looks this morning, because Pennybet,
having discovered that among other accomplishments he was a fine
ethnologist, was about to determine the race and tribe of each of us
by an examination of our features and colouring.

"I'm a Norman," he decided, and threw himself back on his chair,
putting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, as though
that were a comely Norman attitude, "a pure Norman, but I don't know
how my hair got so dark, and my eyes such a spiffing brown."

"What am I?" I interrupted, as introducing a subject of more
immediate interest.

"You, Ray? Oh, you're a Saxon. Your name's Rupert, you see, and
you've blue eyes and a fair skin, and all that rot."

I was quite satisfied with being a pure Saxon, and left Doe to his
examination.

"What am I?" he eagerly asked, offering his oval face and parted
lips for scrutiny.

"You? Oh, Saxon, with a dash of Southern blood. Brown eyes, you see,
and that sloppy milk-and-coffee skin. And there's a dash of Viking
in you--that's your fair hair. Adulterated Saxon you are."

At this Doe loudly protested that he was a pure Saxon, a perfect
Cornish Saxon from the banks of the Fal.

Penny always discouraged precocious criticism, so he replied:

"I'm not arguing with you, my child."

"_You?_ Who are you?"

Penny let his thumbs go further into his armholes, and assured us
with majestic suavity:

"I? I'm _Me_."

"No, you're not," snapped Doe. "You're not me. I'm me."

"Well, you're neither of you me," interrupted the third fool in the
room. "I'm me. So sucks!"

"Now you two boys," began our stately patron, "don't you begin
dictating to _me_. Once and for all, Doe is Doe, Ray is Ray, and I'm
Me. Why, by Jove! Doe-Ray-Me! It's a joke; and I'm a gifted person."

This discovery of the adaptability of our names was so startling
that I exclaimed:

"Good Lord! How mad!"

Penny only shrugged his shoulders, and generally plumed himself on
his little success. And Doe said:

"Has that only just dawned on you?"

"Observe," sneered Penny. "The Gray Doe is jealous. He would like
the fame of having made this fine jest. So he pretends he thought of
it long ago. He bags it."

"Not worth bagging," suggested Doe, who was pulling a lock of his
pale hair over his forehead, and trying with elevated eye-brows to
survey it critically. His feet were resting on a seat in front of
him, and his trousers were well pulled up, so as to show a certain
tract of decent sock. Penny scanned him as though his very
appearance were nauseating.

"Well, why did you bag it?"

"I didn't."

"I say, you're a bit of a liar, aren't you?"

"Well, if I'm a bit of a liar, you're a lot of one."

"My dear little boy," said Penny, with intent to hurt, "we all know
the reputation for lying you had at your last school."

As we had all been at Kensingtowe's Preparatory School together, I
was in a position to know that this was rather wild, and
remonstrated with him.

"I say, that's a bit sticky, isn't it?"

The nobility of my interference impressed me as I made it.
Meanwhile the angry blood mounted to Doe's face, but he carelessly
replied:

"You show what a horrible liar you are by your last remark. I never
said your beastly idea was mine; and because you accused me of doing
so, and I said I didn't, you call me a liar: which is a dirty lie,
if you like. But of course one expects lies from you."

"That may be," rejoined Pennybet. "But you know you don't wash."

Doe parried this thrust with a sarcastic acquiescence.

"No, I know I don't--never did--don't believe in washing."

Now Penny was out to hurt. A mere youngster had presumed to argue
and be cheeky with him: and discipline must be maintained. To this
end there must be punishment; and punishment, to be effective, must
hurt. So he adopted a new line, and with his clever strategy strove
to enlist my support by deigning to couple my name with his.

"At any rate," he drawled, "Ray and I don't toady to Radley."

This poisonous little remark requires some explanation. Mr. Radley,
the assistant house-master at Bramhall House, was a hard master, who
would have been hated for his insufferable conceptions of
discipline, had he not been the finest bat in the Middlesex team.
Just about this time there was a libel current that he made a
favourite of Edgar Doe because he was pretty. "Doe," I had once
said, "Radley's rather keen on you, isn't he?" And Doe had turned
red and scoffed: "How absolutely silly--but, I say, do you really
think so?" Seeing that he found pleasure in the insinuation, I had
followed it up with chaff, upon which he had suddenly cut up rough,
and left me in a pique.

This morning, as Penny pricked him with this poisoned fang, Doe
began to feel that for the moment he was alone amongst us three; and
odd-man-out. He put a tentative question to me, designed to see
whether I were siding with him or with the foe.

"Now, Ray, isn't that the dirtiest lie he's told so far?"

"No," I said. I was still under the glamour of having been appealed
to by the forceful personality of Pennybet; and, besides, it
certainly wasn't.

"Oh, of course you'd agree with anything Penny said, if he asked
you to. But you know you don't really believe I ever sucked up to
Radley."

This rejoinder was bad tactics, for by its blow at my face it forced
me to take sides against him in the quarrel. So I answered:

"Rather! Why, you always do."

"Dir-dirty liar!"

"Ha-ha!" laughed Penny. He saw that he had been successful in his
latest thrust, and set himself to push home the advantage. The
dominance of his position must be secured at all costs. He let down
his heavy-lashed eyelids, as though, for his part, he only desired a
peaceful sleep, and said: "Ha-ha! Ray, that friend of yours is
losing his temper. He's terribly vicious. Mind he doesn't scratch."

Doe's parted lips came suddenly together, his face got red, and he
moved impatiently as he sat. But he said nothing, either because the
words would not come, or lest something more unmanly should.

"Ray," pursued the tormentor, "I think that friend of yours is going
to blub."

Doe left his seat, and stood upon his feet, his lips set in one firm
line. He tossed his hair off his forehead, and, keeping his face
averted from our gaze lest we should detect any moisture about the
eyes, opened a desk, and selected the books he would require. They
were books over which he had scrawled with flourishes:

          "Mr. Edgar Gray Doe, Esq.,"
          "E. Gray Doe, M.A.,"
          "Rev. Edgar G. Doe, D.D.,"
          "E. G. Doe, Physician and Surgeon,"

and, when he had placed them on his arm, he walked towards the door
with his face still turned away from us.

"Oh, don't go, Doe. Don't be a sloppy ass," I said, feeling that I
had been fairly trapped into deserting a fellow-victim, and backing
our common tyrant.

My appeal Doe treated as though he had not heard it; and Penny,
certain that his victory was won, and that he had no further need
of my support, kicked it away with the sneer: "Hit Doe, and Ray's
bruised! What a David and Jonathan we're going to be! How we agree
like steak and kidney!... Rather a nice expression, that."

Penny's commentary was thus turned inwards upon himself, in an
affectionate criticism of his vocabulary, to show the utter
detachment of his interest from the pathetic exit of Edgar Doe. For
now Doe had reached the door, which he opened, passed, and slammed.
In a twinkling I had opened it again, and was looking down the
corridor. There was no sign of my friend anywhere. The moment he had
slammed the door he must have run.

I returned to the preparation room, and Penny sighed, as much as to
say: "What a pity little boys are so petulant and quarrelsome." But
the victory was his, as it always was, and he could think of other
things. There was a clock on the wall behind him, but, too
comfortable to turn his head, he asked me:

"What's the beastly?"

I glanced at the clock, and intimated, sulkily enough, that the
beastly was twenty minutes past nine. He groaned.

"Oh! Ah! An hour's sweat with Radley. Oh, hang! Blow! Damn!"

He stood up, stretched himself, yawned, apologised, got his books,
and occasionally tossed a remark to me, as if he were quite unaware
that I was not only trying to sulk, but also badly wanted him to
know it. As I looked for my books, I sought for the rudest and most
painful insult I could offer him. My duty to Doe demanded that it
should be something quite uncommon. And from a really fine selection
I had just chosen: "You're the biggest liar I've ever met, and, for
all I know, you're as big a thief," when I turned round and found he
was gone. Pennybet always left the field as its master.


§2

Within Radley's spacious class-room some twenty of us took our way
to our desks. Radley mounted his low platform, and, resting his
knuckles on his writing-table, gazed down upon us. He was a man of
over six feet, with the shoulders, chest, and waist of a forcing
batsman. His neck, perhaps, was a little too big, the fault of a
powerful frame; and the wrist that came below his cuff was such that
it made us wonder what was the size of his forearm. His mouth was
hard, and set above a squaring chin, so that you thought him
relentless, till his grey eyes shook your judgment.

"Let me see," he said, as he stood, looking down upon us, "you
should come to me for both periods this morning. Well, I shall
probably be away all the second period. You will come to this
class-room as usual, and Herr Reinhardt will take you in French."

"Oh, joy!" I muttered. Boys whom Radley could not see flipped their
fingers to express delight. Others lifted up the lids of their
desks, and behind these screens went through a pantomime that
suggested pleasure at good news. The fact was that the announcement
that we were to have second period with the German, Reinhardt, was
as good as promising us a holiday. Nay, it was rather better; for,
in an unexpected holiday, we might have been at a loss what to do,
whereas under Reinhardt we had no doubt--we played the fool.

"And now get on with your work," concluded Radley.

We got on with it, knowing that it was only for a short time that we
need work that morning.

It was writing work I know, for, after a while, I had a note
surreptitiously passed to me between folded blotting-paper. The note
bore in Doe's ambitiously ornate writing the alarming statement: "I
shall never like you so much after what you said this morning Yours
Edgar Gray Doe." There was room for me to pen an answer, and in my
great round characters I wrote: "I never really meant anything and
after you left I tried to be rude to Penny but he'd gone and will
you still be my chum Yours S. Ray." (My real name was Rupert, but I
was sometimes nicknamed "Sonny Ray" from the sensational news, which
had leaked out, that my mother so called me, and I took pleasure in
signing myself "S. Ray.") My handsome apology was passed back to the
offended party, and in due course the paper returned to me, bearing
his reply: "I don't know We must talk it over, but don't tell anyone
Yours Edgar Gray Doe." That was the last sentence destined to be
written on this human document, for Radley, without looking up from
the exercise he was correcting, said quietly:

"In the space of the last five minutes Doe has twice corresponded
with Ray, and Ray has once replied to Doe. Now both Ray and Doe will
come up here with the letters."

To the accompaniment of a titter or two, Ray and Doe came up, I
trying to look defiantly indifferent to the fact that he was going
to read my silly remarks, and Doe with his lips firmly together, and
his fair hair the fairer for the blush upon his forehead and cheeks.

Radley left us standing by his desk, while at his leisure he
finished his correcting; then, still without looking up, he ordered:

"Hand over the letters."

A little doggedly I passed over the single sheet of paper feeling
some absurd satisfaction that, since he evidently thought there were
several sheets involved, his uncanny knowledge was at least wrong in
one particular. Doe, on my right hand, turned redder and redder to
see the paper going beneath the master's eye, and made a few nervous
grimaces. Radley read the correspondence pitilessly; and, with his
hard mouth unrelaxed, turned first on Doe, as though sizing him up,
and then on me. He stared at my face till I felt fidgety, and my
mind, which always in moments of excitement ran down most ridiculous
avenues, framed the sentence: "Don't stare, because it's rude," at
which involuntary thought I scarcely restrained a nervous titter.
After this critical inspection, Radley murmured:

"Yes, talk your quarrel over. The bands of friendship mustn't snap
at a breath."

As he said this, Doe edged closer to me, and I wondered if Radley
was a decent chap.

"But why do you sign yourself 'S. Ray'?"

Now my blush outclassed anything Doe had yet produced, and I looked
in dumb confusion towards my friend. Radley refrained from forcing
the question, but pursued with brutal humour:

"Well, there's nothing like suffering together to cement a
friendship. Doe, put out your knuckles."

Radley was ever a man of surprises. This was the first time he had
invited the use of our knuckles for his punitive practices. Doe
proffered four of those on the back of his narrow, cream-coloured
right hand. He did it readily enough, but trembled a little, and the
blush that had disappeared returned at a rush to his neck. Radley
took his ruler, and struck the knuckles with a very sharp rap. Doe's
lips snapped together and remained together,--and that was all.

"And Ray," invited Radley.

I offered the back of my right hand, and, copying my friend, kept my
lips well closed. My eyes had shut themselves nervously, when I
heard a clatter, and realised that Radley had dropped his ruler.
Leaving my right hand extended for punishment, I stooped down,
picked up the ruler with my left, and gave it back to Radley.
Perhaps the blood that now coloured my face was partly due to this
stooping. Radley smiled. It was his habit to become suddenly gentle
after being hard. One second, his hard mouth would frame hard
things; another second, and his grey eyes would redress the balance.

"Ray, you disarm me," he said. "Go to your seats, both of you."

Back we walked abreast to our places, Doe palpably annoyed that he
had not been the one to pick up the ruler. He was a romantic youth
and would have liked to occupy my picturesque and rather heroic
position.

"Why didn't you let me pick up the ruler?" he whispered. "You knew I
wanted to."

This utterly senseless remark I had no opportunity of answering, so
I determined to sulk with Doe, as soon as the interval should
arrive. When, however, the bell rang for that ten-minutes'
excitement, I forgot everything in the glee of thinking that the
second period would be spent with Herr Reinhardt. Ten minutes to go,
and then--and then, Mr. Cæsar!


§3

In the long corridor, on to which Radley's class-room opened,
gathered our elated form, awaiting the arrival of Herr Reinhardt. He
was late. He always was: and it was a mistake to be so, for it gave
us the opportunity, when he drew near, of asking one another the
time in French: "Kell er eight eel? Onze er ay dammy. Wee, wee."

Cæsar Reinhardt, the German, remains upon my mind chiefly as being
utterly unlike a German: he was a long man, very deaf, with drooping
English moustaches, and such obviously weak eyes that now, whenever
Leah's little eye-trouble is read in Genesis, I always think of
Reinhardt. But I think of him as "Mr. Cæsar." Why "Mr. Cæsar" and
not purely "Cæsar" I cannot explain, but the "Mr." was inseparable
from the nickname. Good Mr. Cæsar was misplaced in his profession.
Had he not been obliged to spend his working life in the position of
one who has just been made to look a fool, he would have been an
attractive and lovable person. He had the most beautiful tenor
voice, which, when he spoke was like liquid silver, and, when he
sang elaborate opera passages, made one see glorious wrought-steel
gateways of heavenly palaces. This inefficient master owed his
position to the great vogue enjoyed by his books: "Reinhardt's
German Conversation," "Reinhardt's French Pieces," and others. But
the boys, by common consent, decided not to identify this "Cæsar
Reinhardt, Modern Language Master at Kensingtowe School" with their
own dear Mr. Cæsar. Thus, you see, in their ignorance, they were
able to bring up the Reinhardt works to Mr. Cæsar, and say with
worried brows: "Here, sir. This bally book's all wrong"; "I could
write a better book than this myself, sir"; "The Johnny who wrote
this book, sir--well, _st. st._" Pennybet, however, used to tremble
on the brink of identification, when he made the idiotic mistake of
saying: "Shall I bring up my Cæsar, sir,--I mean, my Reinhardt?"

The jubilation of our class, as we lolled or clog-danced in the
corridor, had need to be organised into some systematic fooling; and
for once in a way, the boys accepted a suggestion of mine.

"Let's all hum 'God Save the King' exactly at twelve o'clock. Mr.
Cæsar won't hear; he's too deaf."

Immediately several boys started to sing the popular air in
question, and others went for a slide along the corridor, both of
which performances are generally construed as meaning: "Right-ho!"

"It's crude," commented Penny, "but I'll not interfere. I might
even help you--who knows? And here comes Mr. Cæsar. Ah, wee, wee."

It was our custom to race in a body along the corridor to meet Mr.
Cæsar, and to arrive breathless at his side, where we would fight to
walk, one on his right hand, and another on his left. In the course
of a brilliant struggle several boys would be prostrated, not
unwillingly. We would then escort him in triumph to his door, and
all offer to turn the lock, crying: "Let _me_ have the key, sir."
"Do let _me_, sir." "You never let _me_, sir--dashed unfair." When
someone had secured the key, he would fling wide the door, as though
to usher in all the kings of Asia, but promptly spoil this courtly
action by racing after the door ere it banged against the wall,
holding it in an iron grip like a runaway horse, and panting
horribly at the strain. This morning I was honoured with the key. I
examined it and saw that it was stuffed up with dirt and there would
be some delay outside the class-room door while the key underwent
alterations and repairs.

"Has any boy," I asked, "a pin?"

None had; but Pennybet offered to go to Bramhall House in search of
one. He could do it in twenty minutes, he said.

"Dear me, how annoying!" I shook the key, I hammered it, I blew down
it till it gave forth a shrill whistle, and Penny said: "Off side."
And then I giggled into the key.

Don't think Mr. Cæsar tolerated all this without a mild protest. I
distinctly remember his saying in his silvery voice: "Give it to me,
Ray. I'll do it," and my replying, as I looked up into his delicate
eyes: "No, it's all right, sir. You leave it to me, sir."

In due course I threw open the door with a triumphant "There!" The
door hit the side-wall with a bang that upset the nervous systems of
neighbouring boys, who felt a little faint, had hysterics, and
recovered. Mr. Cæsar, feeling that the class was a trifle unpunctual
in starting, hurriedly entered.

Then Pennybet distinguished himself. He laid his books unconcernedly
on the master's desk, and walked with a dandy's dignity to the
window. Having surveyed the view with a critical air, he faced round
and addressed Mr. Cæsar courteously: "May I shut the window for you,
sir?" adding in a lower tone that he was always willing to oblige.
Without waiting for the permission to be granted, he turned round
again and, pulling up each sleeve that his cuffs might not be soiled
in the operation, proceeded to turn the handle, by means of which
the lofty window was closed.

Now there were four long windows in a row, and they all needed
shutting--this beautiful summer morning. None of us was to be
outdone in politeness by Penny; and all rushed to the coveted
handles so as to be first in shutting the remaining windows. The
element of competition and the steeplechasing methods necessary, if
we were to surmount the intervening desks, made it all rather
exciting. Several boys, converging from different directions,
arrived at the handles at the same time. It was natural, then, that
a certain amount of discussion should follow as to whose right it
was to shut the windows, and that the various little assemblies
debating the point should go and refer the question simultaneously
to Mr. Cæsar.

Mr. Cæsar gave his answer with some emphasis:

"Will--you--all--sit--down?"

This rhetorical question being in the nature of a command, we
sullenly complied, tossing our heads to show our sense of the
indignity to which we had been submitted. Pennybet, meanwhile,
continued to turn his handle in a leisurely fashion and touch his
forehead like an organ-grinder.

Mr. Cæsar looked at him angrily and pathetically, conscious of his
powerlessness.

"Que faites vous, Pennybet? Asseyez vous toute suite!"

"Yes, sir," answered Penny, who had no sympathy with German, French,
or any of these ludicrous languages. "Yes, sir, we had two, and one
died."

"Que voulez vous dire? Allez à votre place!"

"It's all right, sir, if you cross your fingers," suggested Penny.

Poor Mr. Cæsar made a movement, as though he would go and push the
mutineer to his place.

"You will go to your seat immediately, Pennybet," he ordered.

Penny cocked his head on one side. "Oh, _sir_," said he
reproachfully.

Our friend always expressed his sense of injustice with this sad
"Oh, _sir_," and, as he generally detected a vein of injustice in
any demand made upon him, the expression was of frequent occurrence.

Mr. Cæsar first moved his lips incompetently, and then, with a
studied slowness that was meant to sound imperious, began:

"When I say 'Sit'--"

"You mean 'Sit,'" explained Penny promptly.

"That's impertinence."

But Penny had his head thrown back, and was gazing out of eyes,
curtained by the fall of heavy-fringed lids, at the ceiling.

"Pennybet," cried his master, his very voice apprehensive, "will you
have the goodness to attend?"

"Oh, ah, yes, sir," agreed Penny, awaking from his reverie.

"You haven't the manners of a savage, boy."

"Oh, _sir_."

Mr. Cæsar bit his lip, and his silver voice would scarcely come.

"Or of a pig!"

"Would a pig have manners, sir?" corrected Penny.

"That's consummate impudence!"

"Oh, is it, sir?" Penny's tone suggested that he was grateful for
the enlightenment. Henceforth he would not be in two minds on the
subject.

Mr. Cæsar, repulsed again by the more powerful character of the boy,
tried to cover the feebleness of his position by sounding as
threatening as possible.

"Go to your seat at once! The impudence of this class is
insufferable!"

Loud murmurs of dissent from twenty boys greeted this aspersion. The
class resolved itself into an Opposition, inspired by one object,
which was to repudiate aspersions. Penny excellently voiced their
resentment.

"Oh, _sir_." (Opposition cheers.)

Mr. Cæsar hurled his chair behind him, and approached very close to
Penny.

"Will you go to your seat at once?"

Penny, with all his power, was still a boy; and for a moment the
child in him flinched before the exceedingly close approach of Mr.
Cæsar. But the next minute he looked up at the still open window;
shivered, and shuddered; rubbed his cold hands (this beautiful
summer morning); buttoned himself up warmly; went to the master's
desk for his books; dropped them one after another; blew on his
numbed fingers to infuse a little warmth into them, contriving a
whistle, and all the time looking most rebukingly at his tyrannical
master; picked up four books and dropped two of them; picked up
those and dropped one more; walked to his seat in high sorrow, and
banged the whole lot of the books down upon the desk and floor in an
appalling cataract, as the full cruelty of Mr. Cæsar's treatment
came suddenly home to him.

When we recovered from this shattering explosion of Penny's books, a
little quiet work would have begun, had not Doe, with his romantic
imagination lit by the glow of Penny's audacity, started to crave
the notoriety of being likewise a leader of men. He rose from his
desk, approached Mr. Cæsar, and extended his hand with a belated
"Good morning, sir."

Poor Mr. Cæsar, in the kindliness of his heart, was touched by Doe's
graceful action, and grasped the proffered hand, saying: "Good
morning, Doe." By this time the whole class was arranged in a
tolerably straight line behind Doe, and waiting to go through the
ceremony of shaking hands.

Work commenced at about twenty minutes to twelve, and, when twelve
should come, we were to render, according to programme, "God Save
the King," with some delicate humming. For want of something better
to do, I wrote a clause of the exercise set. Mr. Cæsar's back was
now turned and he was studying a wall-map.

"Shall I?"

"Yes, rather!"

These two whispered sentences I heard from behind me. Inquisitively
I turned round to see what simmered there.

"Keep working, you fool!" hissed my neighbour.

Events of some moment were happening in the rear. It had occurred to
several that the hands of the clock might be encouraged with a
slight push to hasten their journey over the next few minutes. Doe,
half anxious to be the daring one to do it, half nervous of the
consequences, had whispered: "Shall I?" And his advisers had
answered: "Yes, rather!" He threw down a piece of blotting paper,
and tip-toed towards it, as though to pick it up. Seeing with a
side-glance that Mr. Cæsar's back was still turned, he mounted a
form, and pushed on the clock's hands. Then, hurriedly getting
down, he flew back nervously to his seat, where he pretended to be
rapidly writing.

Hearing these slithy and suggestive movements, I declined to remain
any longer ignorant of their meaning. After all, I had suggested the
"whole bally business," and was entitled to know the means selected
for its conduct. So round went my inquisitive head. Then I shook in
my glee. Someone had pushed on the hands of the clock, and it was
three minutes to twelve. There was a rustle of excitement in the
room. The silence of expectancy followed. "Two-minutes-to" narrowed
into "One-minute-to"; and after a premonitory click, which produced
sufficient excitement to interfere with our breath, the clock struck
twelve.

Inasmuch as I occupied a very favourable position, I got up to
conduct proceedings. I faced the class, stretched out my right hand,
which held a pen by way of a baton, and whispered: "One. Two.
_Three_."

It began. I have often wondered since how I could have been so wrong
in my calculations. I had estimated that, if we all hummed, there
would result a gentle murmur. I never dreamt that each of the twenty
boys would respond so splendidly to my appeal. Instead of a gentle
murmur, the National Hymn was opened with extraordinary volume and
spirit.

My first instinct was the low one of self-preservation. Feeling no
desire to play a leading part in this terrible outbreak, I hastily
sat down with a view to resuming my studies. Unfortunately I sat
down too heavily, and there was the noise of a bump, which served to
bring the performance to an effective conclusion. My books clattered
to the floor, and Mr. Cæsar turned on me with a cry of wrath.

"Ray, what are you doing?"

It was a sudden and awkward question; and, for a second, I was at a
loss for words to express to my satisfaction what I was doing. Penny
seemed disappointed at my declension into disgrace, and murmured
reproachfully: "O Rupert, my little Rupert, _st. st._" I saw that
the game was up. Mr. Cæsar had inquired what I was doing; and a
survey of what I was doing showed me that, between some antecedent
movements and some subsequent effects, my central procedure was a
conducting of the class. So, very red but trying to be impudent, I
said as much, after first turning round and making an unpleasant
face at Penny.

"Conducting, sir," I explained, as though nothing could be more
natural at twelve o'clock.

"Conducting!" said Mr. Cæsar. "Well, you may be able to conduct the
class, but you certainly cannot conduct yourself."

This resembling a joke, the class expressed its appreciation in a
prolonged and uproarious laugh. It was a stupendous laugh. It had
fine crescendo and diminuendo passages, and only died hard, after a
chain of intermittent "Ha-ha's." Then it had a glorious
resurrection, but faded at last into the distance, a few stray
"Ha-ha's" from Pennybet bringing up the rear.

Mr. Cæsar trembled with impotent passion, his weak eyes eloquent
with anger and suffering.

"Are you responsible for this outrage, Ray?"

I looked down and muttered: "It was my suggestion, sir."

"Then you shall suffer for it. Who has tampered with the clock?"

There was no answer, and every boy looked at the remainder of the
class to show his ignorance of the whole matter. Doe glanced from
one to another for instructions. Some by facial movements suggested
an avowal of his part, but he whispered: "Not yet," and waited,
blushing.

"Then the whole class shall do two hours' extra work."

The words were scarcely out of Mr. Cæsar's mouth, before every boy
was protesting. I caught above the confusion such complaints as:
"Oh, sir!" "But _really_, sir," or a more sullen: "I never touched
the beastly clock!" or even a frank: "I won't do it." I observed
that Penny was taking advantage of the noise to deliver an emotional
sermon, which he accompanied with passionate gestures and concluded
by turning eastward and profanely repeating the ascription: "And now
to God the Father--"

A sudden silence, and every boy sits awkwardly in his place.
Radley's tall figure stood in the room: and the door was being shut
by his hand. I kept my eyes fixed on him. I was changed. I no longer
felt disorderly nor impudent: for disorderliness and impudence in me
were but unnatural efforts to copy Pennybet, that master-fool. I
dropped into my natural self, a thing of shyness and diffidence. I
was not conscious of any ill-will towards Radley for returning to
his class-room, when he was not expected; it was just a piece of bad
fortune for me. I was about to be "whacked," I knew; and, though I
did not move, I felt strange emotions within me. Certainly I was a
little afraid, for Radley whacked harder than they all.

And then, as usual, my brain ran down a wildly irrelevant course. I
reflected that the height of my ambition would be reached, if I
could grow into as tall a man as Radley. My frame, at present, gave
no promise of developing into that of a very tall man; but
henceforth I would do regular physical exercises of a stretching
character, and eschew all evils that retarded the growth. In the
enthusiasm of a new aim, towards which I would start this very day,
I almost forgot my present embarrassing position. Hasty calculations
followed as to how much I would have to grow each year. Let me see,
how old was I? Just thirteen. How many years to grow in?

"Who is the ringleader of this?" asked Radley..

I stood up and whispered: "Me, sir."

Somehow a ready acknowledgment seemed to agree with my latest
ambition.

"Then come and stand out here. You know you ought to be caned, so
you'll thoroughly enjoy it. In fact, being a decent boy, you'd be
miserable without it."

Here Mr. Cæsar, who bore no grudge against Radley for assuming the
reins of command, whispered to him; and Radley asked the class:

"Who touched the clock?"

"I did, sir."

It was Doe's voice.

"Why didn't you say so before?"

"I was just going to when you came in."

Radley looked straight into the brown eyes of the boy who was
supposed to be his favourite, and Doe looked back unshiftingly; he
had heard those condemned, who did not look people straight in the
face, and I fancy he rather exaggerated his steady return gaze.

"I'm sure you were," said Radley.

Then the foreman of the other boys got up.

"Some of us suggested it to Doe, sir."

"Very well, you will have the punishment of seeing him suffer for
it."

And thereupon, without waiting to be told, Doe left his desk, and
came and stood by me. It was a theatrical action, such as only he
would have done, and our master concealed his surprise, if he felt
any, by an impassive face.

"I shall now cane these two boys," he said with cold-blooded
directness.

"Certainly," whispered Penny.

Both corners of my mouth went down in a grim resignation. Doe's lips
pressed themselves firmly together, and his eyelids trembled. Mr.
Cæsar, ever generous, looked through the window over green lawns and
flower-beds. Radley went to his cupboard, and took out a cane.

"Bend over, Ray."

"Certainly," muttered Penny again. "Bend over."

I bent over, resting my hands on my knees. Radley was a cricketer
with a big reputation for cutting and driving; and three drives,
right in the middle of the cane, convinced me what a first-class
hitter he was. At the fourth, an especially resounding one, Penny
whistled a soft and prolonged whistle of amazement, and murmured:
"Well, _that's_ a boundary, anyway." And I heard suppressed giggles,
and knew that my class-fellows were enjoying the exquisite agony of
forcing back their laughter.

When my performance was over, the second victim, Edgar Doe, with the
steel calm of a French aristocrat, which he affected under
punishment, walked to the spot where I had been operated on. He bent
over (again without being told to do so), and only spoiled his proud
submission by telegraphing to Radley one uncontrolled look of
pathetic appeal like the glance of a faithful dog. Radley, not
noticing these unnerving actions, or possibly a little annoyed by
them, administered justice severely enough for Doe, proud as he was,
to wince slightly at every cut. Then he put his cane away, and
issued, as before, his little ration of gentleness.

"You're two plucky boys," he said.


§4

That night I measured my barefoot height against the dormitory wall,
and made a deep pencil-mark thereon: which done, I reached up to a
great height, and made a mark to represent Radley. After these
preliminaries there was nothing to do but to wait developments. One
practice which aided growth was to lie full-length in bed instead of
curled up. So, after I had cut with nail-scissors the few fair hairs
from my breast and calves, in an endeavour to encourage a plentiful
crop like that which added manliness to Pennybet's darker
form--after this delicate, operation, I got between the sheets, and
straightened out my limbs with a considerable effort of the will.
Later on I forced them down again, when I found that my knees had
once more strayed up to my chin.

Our dormitory at Bramhall House was a long many-windowed room,
containing thirty beds, Edgar Doe's being on my left. He suddenly
made reference to our punishment of the morning.

"I wonder why he gave me a worse dose than you."

"Yes, he did let into you," I said cheerfully.

Doe flushed, and continued talking so as to be heard only by me.

"If it had been any other master, I'd have been mad with him. Fancy,
practically two whackings in a morning; one on the knuckles and one
on the--and the other. But you can't hate Radley, can you?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said, with grave doubts.

There was a pause. But a desire to tell confidences had been
begotten of warm bed and darkness, and my friend soon proceeded:

"It's funny, Rupert, but I like talking to you better than to any of
the other chaps. I feel I can tell you things I wouldn't tell
anybody else. Do you know, I really think I like Radley better than
anyone else in the world. I simply loved being whacked by him."

I pulled the clothes off my head that I might see the extraordinary
creature that was talking to me. A dim light always burned near our
beds, and by it I was able to see that Doe was very red and clearly
wishing he had not made his last remark. My immediate desire, on
witnessing his discomfiture, was to put him at his ease by
pretending that I saw nothing unusual in the words. So I quickly
evolved a very casual question.

"What! Better than your father and mother?"

"Well, you see--" and he shifted uneasily--"you know perfectly well
that my father and mother are dead."

"O law!" I said.

Awkwardly the conversation dropped. And, as I lay upon my pillow,
down went my brain along a line of wandering thoughts. Doe's remark,
I reflected, was like that of a school-girl who adored her mistress.
Perhaps Doe was a girl. After all, I had no certain knowledge that
he wasn't a girl with his hair cut short. I pictured him, then, with
his hair, paler than straw, reaching down beneath his shoulders, and
with his brown eyes and parted lips wearing a feminine appearance.
As I produced this strange figure, I began to feel, somewhere in the
region of my waist, motions of calf-love for the girl Doe that I had
created. But, as Doe's prowess at cricket asserted itself upon my
mind, his gender became conclusively established, and--ah, well, I
was half asleep.

But, so strange were the processes of my childish mind that this
feeling of love at first sight for the girl Doe, who never existed,
I count as one of the strongest forces that helped to create my
later affection for the real Edgar Gray Doe.

"I think you and I must have been intended to come together,
Rupert," I heard him saying later on, as I was fast dozing off. "I
s'pose that's why we were called Doe and Ray."

"Er," I dreamily assented from beneath the bedclothes.

And still later a voice said:

"It was rather fun being whacked side by side, being twins."

From a great distance I heard it, as I listened upon the frontier of
sleep. And, recalling without any effort Radley's words: "There's
nothing like suffering together to cement a friendship," I crossed
the frontier. All coiled up again, my knees nearly touching my chin,
I passed into the country of dreams.




CHAPTER II

RUPERT OPENS A GREAT WAR


§1

Poor Mr. Cæsar, with the weak eyes! He had left his class-room door
unlocked. _Golly_, so he had! And since the bell had only just
ceased to echo, and Mr. Cæsar would certainly be some minutes late,
what was to stop us from conducting a few operations within the
class-room? Under the command of Pennybet, we entered the room and
with due respect lifted the master's large writing-desk from its
little platform, and carried it to the further end of the room. We
left him his armchair, decently disposed upon the platform, thinking
it would be ungenerous to keep him standing through an hour's
lesson.

Then we guiltily stole out of the class-room, closed the door, and
lined up in the corridor, as smartly as a squad of regulars. Aided
by Penny's hand, we right-dressed. We kept our eyes front, heads
erect, and heels together. We braced ourselves up still better when
Mr. Cæsar appeared at the end of the corridor. None of us spoke nor
moved. A few fools like myself giggled nasally, and were promptly
subdued: "Don't spoil it all, you stinking fish!"

On came the gallant Mr. Cæsar, his eyes mutely inquiring the reason
for this ominous quiet. He reached the door with no sign from any of
us that we were aware of a new arrival. He tried the lock with his
key and, after an expression of surprise to find it already turned,
opened the door and walked in. Immediately, in accordance with a
pre-arranged code of signals, Penny dropped _one_ book. We
right-turned. We did it in faultless time, turning as one man, and
each of us bringing his left foot with a brisk stamp on the floor.
Then, a suitable silence having ensued, Penny dropped two books.
Instantly we obeyed. In single file, our left feet stamping
rhythmically, with heads erect and eyes front, we marched after Mr.
Cæsar, and gradually diverged from one another till each man stood
marking time at his particular desk. At this point Penny tripped
over his left heel, and in an unfortunate accident flung all his
books on to the floor. Abruptly, and like machines, we sat down. The
room shook.

It was difficult for our master to know what to do; as there was no
real reason to associate our military movements with Penny's series
of little accidents, and there was certainly no fault to find with
our orderly entry into the class-room. So he did nothing beyond
sadly sweeping us with his eyes. And then he inquired:

"Where's my desk?"

Goodness gracious, where could his great desk be? We got out of our
seats, foreseeing a long search. We began by opening our own desks
and looking inside. Certain high lockers that stood against the wall
we opened. It was in none of them. We pulled ourselves up and looked
along the top of these lockers. It was not there. Penny did three or
four of these "pull-ups" by way of extending his biceps. We looked
along the walls and under the forms. Penny created a little
excitement by declaring that "he thought he saw it then." And Doe
opened the door and looked up and down the corridor.

"It's not anywhere in the corridor," said he. The whole class felt
he might be mistaken, and went to the door to satisfy themselves.

Mr. Cæsar affected a little sarcasm.

"Is not that it at the other end of the room?"

We turned round and gazed down the direction in which he was
looking. Yes, there was surely something there. Penny flung up his
hand and cried:

"Please, teacher, I've found it."

"Well," began Mr. Cæsar, "if one or two of you would bring the desk
up here--"

If one or two of us would! Why, we all would--all twenty of us. We
took off our coats and, folding them carefully, laid them on the
desks. We rolled up our shirt-sleeves above the elbows, disclosing a
lot of white, childish forearms. We spat on our hands and rubbed
them together. We did a little spitting on one another's hands.
Then we hustled and crowded round the desk. We lifted it off the
ground, brought it a foot or two, and dropped it heavily. Phew! it
was hard work. We took out our handkerchiefs, and wiped the sweat
from our brows. Anyone who had no handkerchief borrowed from someone
who had finished with his. Returning to our task, we carried the
desk a little nearer and dropped it. Doe got a serious splinter in
his hand, and we all pulled it out for him. Puffing and groaning as
we dragged the unwieldy desk, we approached the dais on which it
must be placed. We all stepped upon the dais (slightly incommoding
Mr. Cæsar, who was standing there), and lifted up one end of the
desk so that the pens and pencils rattled inside. One pull, my lads,
and the desk was half on the platform and half on the floor. Leaving
it in this inclined position, we stepped down to the floor again,
and three of us placed our shoulders against the lower end, while
the rest scrummed down, Rugby fashion, in row upon row behind one
another. A good co-operative shove, accompanied by murmurs of
"Coming on your right, forwards; heel it out, whites; break away,
forwards!" and up she went, a diagonal route into the air.
Unfortunately, we all raised our heads at the same time to see how
much further she had to go, and back she tobogganed again on to the
shins of the boys in the front row. They declared they were
henceforth incapacitated for life.

We got it on to the platform at last with a good run, but the
enthusiasm of the back row of scrummers, who apparently thought the
task could not be completed till they were off the floor and on the
platform, was so strong that the desk was pushed much too far, and
toppled over the further side of the platform.

This was too much. My suppressed giggling burst like a grenade into
uncontrolled laughter. Then I said: "I'm sorry, sir."


§2

But this disorder is a strong dish, and we've talked about quite as
much as is good for us. So let us change the hour and visit another
class-room, where there are no rebellions, but nevertheless
arithmetic and trouble--and Ray and Doe and Pennybet. And here is a
dear little master in charge. It is Mr. Fillet, the housemaster of
Bramhall House, where, as you know, we were paying guests--a fat
little man with a bald pate, a soft red face, a pretty little
chestnut beard, and an ugly little stutter in his speech. Bless him,
the dear little man, we called him Carpet Slippers. This was because
one of his two chief attributes was to be always in carpet slippers.
The other attribute was to be always round a corner.

Fillet, or Carpet Slippers, disliked his young boarder, Rupert Ray.
The reason is soon told. One night, when I was out of my bed and
gambolling in pyjamas about the first story of his house, I looked
up the well of the staircase and saw the little shadow of someone
parading the landing above. Thinking it to be a boy, I called out in
a stage-whisper: "Is that old pig, Carpet Slippers, up there?" And a
dear little chestnut beard and a smile came over the balusters,
accompanied by a voice: "Yes, h-h-here he is. Wh-what do you want
with him?"

It was Fillet, in carpet slippers, and round a corner.

And then in his class-room, this day, I got a sum wrong. I deduced
that in a certain battle "point 64" of a soldier remained wounded on
the field, while "point 36" escaped with the retreating army unhurt.
This did not seem a satisfactory conclusion either to the sum or to
the soldier, and I was not surprised, on looking up the answer, to
find that I was wrong. There were two methods of detecting the
error: one was to work through the sum again, the other was to
submit it to Fillet for revision. The latter seemed the less irksome
scheme, and in a sinister moment--heavens! how pregnant with
consequences it was--I left my desk, approached Carpet Slippers, and
laid the trouble before him.

Now Fillet was in the worst of tempers, having been just incensed by
a boy who had declared that two gills equalled one pint, two pints
one quart, and two quarts one rod, pole, or perch. So, when I
brought my sum up and giggled at the answer, he looked at me as if
he neither liked me nor desired that I should ever like him. Then he
indulged in cheap sarcasms. This he was wont to do, and, after
emitting them through his silky beard, he would draw in his breath
through parted teeth, as a child does when it has the taste of
peppermint in its mouth.

"I-I-I t-tell you, a boy in a kindergarten could get it right--a
g-g-guttersnipe could. I-I-I-I--"

This was so much like what they yell from a fire-engine that, though
I struggled hard, I could not contain a giggle.

"I-I-I'll do it for you."

He got it wrong, which elicited a bursting giggle from me. Fillet
turned on me like a barking dog.

"Go to your place, boy, and take your vulgar guffaws with you!"

Surprised at Fillet's taking it to heart in this way, I went, much
abashed, to my seat, and tried to control my fit of giggling. But it
so possessed me that finally it made a very horrible noise in my
nose. Carpet Slippers raised his little head that was a hybrid
between a peach and a billiard ball--a peach as to the face, and a
billiard ball as to the cranium--and when he saw me sitting with
lips tightly set and my desk trembling with my internal laughter,
anger put a fresh coating of red upon both peach and ball. But he
took no action at present.

"I-I'll d-do one of these sums on the board for you."

Getting up, he turned his back on us and, facing the board, wrote
with his chalk the number 10. Now, as he wrote on a level with his
eyes, his fat little head quite eclipsed his writing. So, simply to
show that I was no longer laughing, I called out loudly:

"What number, sir?"

Round swung Carpet Slippers, his peach-face assuming the tint of a
tomato.

"What number? I-I'll t-teach you to ask 'what number' when I've
written '10' on the board. I-I've heard what you do in other
class-rooms. D-don't think you're going to introduce your
hooliganism here. Go and ask the p-porter to let me have a cane."

The boys pricked up their ears and looked at me. Penny let his jaw
drop in amazement and, leaving his mouth open, maintained an
expression like that of the village idiot. I stared, flabbergasted,
into Carpet Slippers' face.

"But, sir--" I ventured. Tears and temper began to rise in me.

"D-don't argue. Do what you're told."

"But, sir--" And then, like a cloud, sullen obstinacy came down upon
me. I was certain that he had been longing for an excuse to flog me.
The pride and the relish of the martyr supported me as, without
telling him that his head had obstructed my view, I walked out to do
my message.

Finding the porter in his office, I politely inquired if he could
spare a cane for Mr. Fillet; and, at my query, he grinned--the
blithering idiot. The cane that he handed me I took, and, being at
that moment a youngster who wouldn't have let his spirits sink for
all the Fillets in the world, I offered back the cane and suggested:

"I say, are you sure you couldn't lose this?"

"Quite sure, sir."

"Well, look here, do you really think you can manage to part with
it?"

"Quite sure, sir."

"Well, don't you think that, for a man of your age, you look rather
a fool standing up there and saying 'Quite sure' to everything
that's said to you? Don't you think it's rather a fat and silly
thing to do?"

I put it to him as man to man.

"Quite sure, sir," he replied with a laugh.

"Go to blazes," I said, "and take your vulgar guffaws with you."

On my way back I stayed to admire the classical busts and statues
that lined the deserted corridors like exhibits in a museum. All the
life-size ones I whacked with my cane. I took a wistful pleasure in
giving the naked ones two good strokes each. As I drew near the
class-room door I certainly felt uncomfortable, for I knew Fillet
intended to sting. But my sense of martyrdom carried me through. I
gathered my dignity about me and knocked heavily on the door.
Annoyed that my hand had trembled and spoilt the effect, I opened
the door briskly and shut it briskly. With a calm step and fearless
look, both studied, for I copied Doe in these matters, I walked
towards Carpet Slippers. The little man was pretending he had
forgotten all about me, while really he had prepared a sarcasm with
which to poison my wounds.

"Oh, indeed. You've b-been a long time gone; but thrashings are like
good wine--they improve with keeping."

He sucked in his breath with satisfaction.

"Yes, sir," replied I. If there was any trembling about me it was
inside and not visible.

He took the cane from my hand and examined its effectiveness. Then,
intending a pretty little jest, he faced the class and commanded:

"St-stand out, that boy who asked the number of the sum after I had
put it on the board."

"Swine!" hissed somebody. I fancy it was Edgar Doe.

"I'm here, sir," replied I from his side, white.

Pennybet, who all this time had kept his mouth agape and
impersonated the village idiot, laid down his pen, closed his book,
and disposed himself to watch out the matter. He was always callous
when in pursuit of his object; and his object now was to suck the
humour out of my painful position. He put his elbow on the desk,
rested his head at a graceful angle on the palm of his hand, and
half closed his Arab eyes. He looked like an earnest parson posing
for a photograph.

Our engaging little master, having bent me over and arranged me for
punishment, gave me ten strokes instead of the usual six--the number
of the sum had been "ten."

When I rose from my bended posture, how I hated Carpet Slippers, and
was happy in my hate! I hated the silkiness of his chestnut beard; I
hated the sheen of his pink cranium; I hated his soft rotundity and
his little curvilinear features; I hated, above all, his poisonous
speeches. As I walked to my seat, my body stinging still, I resolved
to go to war with Fillet. I declared with all a child's power of
make-believe that a state of war existed between Rupert Ray and
Carpet Slippers. War, then, war, open or understood!

And when that class closed, no boy was more forcedly loud and lively
than I: no boy shut his books with greater claps; no boy banged his
desk more carelessly. Nor would I listen to sympathising friends,
but laughed out in Fillet's hearing: "You don't think I care, do
you?"

Fillet noticed my ostentatious display of indifference and perhaps
felt apprehensive of the latent devil that he had aroused, but his
inward comment, I doubt not, was: "We'll see who's going to be
master here. He can feel the weight of my hand again, if he likes.
We can't let a bad-spirited little boy have all his own way. I think
we'll break his defiance. I think we will." And possibly, as he said
it, he sucked in his breath with satisfaction. Fillet realised that
it was War and the first shots had been exchanged.


§3

This was the preliminary skirmish. Real and bloody battle was joined
twenty-four hours later. But, in the meantime, there was an
early-evening lull which enclosed a delightful cricket match. A team
of junior Kensingtonians, that included Doe and myself, was going
across Kensingtowe High Road to play the First Eleven of the
Preparatory School, an academy flippantly known as the "Nursery,"
its boys being "Suckers." Edgar Doe had been a certain choice.
Brought up in the midst of a great cricketing family, the Grays of
Surrey tradition, in his beautiful Falmouth home which boasted
cricket pitches of its own, he was as polished a bat as the Nursery
had ever known. I came to be selected as a promising change-bowler.

We were walking in our flannels towards the Nursery gates, when Doe,
referring with bad taste to the Fillet incident just closed, began
to chastise me with his cricket bat. I returned the treatment with a
pair of pads. So we went along, full in the public view, each trying
to "get in a good one" on the other. I managed to knock Doe's bat
out of his hand, and, as he stooped to pick it up, he received my
pads upon his person. This was actually in the middle of the High
Street. He laughed loudly, and crying "O you young beast!" started
to belabour me with his fists. Suddenly we stopped, let our hands
fall to our sides, and began to walk like nuns in a cloister. Radley
had joined us.

"If you're so anxious to whack each other," said he pleasantly,
"won't you commission me to do it in both cases?"

We grinned sheepishly and said nothing. My mind formulated the
sentence "Good Lord, no!" and, quickly constructing what would have
happened had I uttered it aloud, I tittered uncomfortably and looked
away. There was an awkward pause as we walked along with our master
between us.

"Well, Ray," he said, endeavouring to put us at our ease, "are you a
great batsman?"

"No, sir," replied I. "Doe is."

"So I've heard. I'm coming to see what he's made of."

Doe could find nothing to say in reply, but lifted up his face and
looked at Radley with the gratitude of a dog. For my part I felt a
pleasing, squirmy excitement to think that we were to walk on to the
Nursery field in the company of the great Middlesex amateur; and,
incidentally, I took the opportunity of measuring myself against
him.

We arrived on the ground, creating less sensation than I would have
liked. Radley took a deck-chair in front of the pavilion next to Dr.
Chapman, or "Chappy," surely the stoutest and jolliest of school
doctors. The fact that Chappy, occupying so withdrawn a position as
medical officer to the two schools, should have been such a
memorable figure in the life of the boys testifies to the largeness
of his personality. And, not being the most modest of stout and
hearty doctors, he was always willing himself to testify to the
largeness of his personality. He dearly loved cricket, he would tell
you, for he had been a cricketer himself and seen many worse; and he
dearly loved boys, for he had been a boy himself and never seen any
worse: so, where there was a boys' cricket match, there, old man,
you would find Dr. Chapman. Besides, when boys played cricket, it
was well to have a doctor on the field, and he was a doctor and had
never met a better. Would you have a cigar? All tobacco, in his
opinion, led to the overthrow of body and soul--believe him; it
did--but you would never see him without a cigar. Not he!

Such was Chappy, the medicine man. He was right, about the cigar. As
I figure him in my mind, the things that I immediately associate
with his stout, jolly presence are a chewed cigar drooping from his
mouth and a huge white waistcoat soiled by the tumbled ash. I sum
him up as a genial soul whose religion was to seek comfort, to find
popularity a comfortable thing, and to love popularity among young
things as the most comfortable of all. And, if that last dogma of
his be not Heaven's truth, then my outlook on life is all wrong, and
this book's a failure!

As Radley placed his muscular frame in the deck-chair, Chappy
greeted him with these regrettable remarks: "Hallo, Radley, aren't
you dead yet? How the devil are you? My word, how you've grown!"

The match started, Doe and our captain opening the Kensingtowe
innings. I left the other boys and lay down upon the grass a little
behind Radley's chair. Converging reasons led me there: one--I
desired that my old friends, the Suckers, should know of my intimacy
with S.T. Radley, of Middlesex; two--I felt Chappy's conversation
would certainly be entertaining; and three--I should soon have to go
in to bat, and was feeling too nervous to talk to offensively happy
boys who were unworried by such imminent publicity.

"So they've sent us a cricketer in young Doe," Radley was saying to
Dr. Chapman.

Chappy turned in his chair, which creaked alarmingly, and composed
himself to talk comfortably.

"Oh, the Gray Doe--yes, charming little squirt--best bat the Nursery
had last year. And, though nobody but myself recognised it, the Gem
was the best bowler."

"The Gem?" queried Radley. "Who was the 'Gem'?"

"Don't you know the Gem? Why, Ray, the little snipe with eyes
something between a diamond and a turquoise. The ladies here called
him 'The Gem' because of this affliction. He'd be a great bowler,
only he's too shy."

At this point I rolled on to my stomach so as to appear unaware of
their conversation, which was even more entertaining than I had
hoped. Radley turned round and, having seen me, said something in an
undertone to Chappy. I imagine he drew attention to my proximity,
for Chappy laughed out: "O law! Glory be!" and continued in a lower
voice.

My sense of honour was not so nice that it prevented me from trying
to catch the rest of their conversation. They had opened so
promisingly: and now Chappy was getting quite enthusiastic, and the
rapid motion of his lips was causing the cigar to be so restless
that it constantly changed its position and scattered ash down his
expanse of white waistcoat. I had no need, however, to strain my
ears, for Chappy was incapable of speaking softly for any length of
time. I caught him proceeding:

"He's clever, his masters say, and got a big future. Handsome little
rogue, too. He's none of your ordinary boys. He's a twig from the
cedar-top."

For two reasons--first, that this was a fine rhetorical flourish on
which to close; and secondly, that his breath was giving out--Chappy
concluded his remarks, swept his waistcoat, and re-arranged his
position in the deck-chair. I was feeling horribly anxious lest I
should die without knowing whether it was of Doe or of me that he
had spoken, when Radley cleared up the matter by saying:

"He's playing a straight bat, isn't he?"

So it was Doe. Well, he was clever, I supposed, but not as clever as
all that.

"Straight bat, rather!" agreed Chappy.

"Does he play a straight bat in all things?"

"My dear fellow, what the la-diddly-um do you mean?"

"Why, he seems to be a bit of an actor--to do things because he
wants to appear in a favourable light."

"I say, that's doocid ungenerous of you," said Chappy. "And, by
jove, if he likes to imagine himself very noble and heroic, and
tries to act accordingly, very fine of him."

"Very," endorsed Radley, cryptically.

"I've a great liking for him."

"So have I."

"Good. Now, what first attracted you--his good looks or his
virtues?"

"Neither. His vices."

"Here, hang me, Radley," said Chappy, "you want examining. You're
not only a shocking bad conversationalist, but also a little mad.
That's your doctor's opinion; that'll be a guinea, please."

After this I ceased to listen. The talk was all about Doe, and
rather silly. And I wanted to think over the little fact, which
Chappy had let fall, that certain ladies called me the "Gem." I
chewed a blade of grass and ruminated. That flattering little
disclosure balanced the weight of Fillet's dislike. I wished it
could be brought to his knowledge; and I imagined conversations in
which he was told. This was the first time that it dawned upon me
that there was anything in my looks to admire. Pennybet I conceived
to be dark and handsome, Doe fair and pretty, and myself drab and
plain. But now I got up and took myself, completely thrilled, to a
mirror in the changing room to have a look at these same eyes. I was
prepared for something good. The result was that I became almost
sick with disappointment. A close examination showed them to be
quite commonplace. I could not really detect that they were blue. I
even thought they looked a little foolish. And, as I gazed at them,
they certainly turned very sad.

I strolled back to the pavilion just as a burst of applause
announced a fine drive by Doe.

"Oh, pretty stroke!" shouted Chappy, sprinkling quantities of ash.
"Pretty play! By jove, the little fool's a genius!"

"He may be a genius of some other sort," said Radley, "but he's not
a genius at cricket. Look at his diffidence in the treatment of
swift balls. He's a cricketer _made_, not born. He has imagination
and a sense of artistic effect, and a natural grace--that's all.
They'll make him a poet, perhaps, but not a cricketer."

"Don't talk such flapdoodle!" grumbled Chappy. "Look at that!"

All that Doe did then was to direct the ball with perfect ease
between Point and Short Slip and to glance quickly towards the
pavilion to see if the stroke had been noticed. The sight of him
batting there made me feel another squirmy sensation at the thought
that he was my especial friend. He had given, I recall, his grey hat
to the umpire to hold, and the wind was playing with his hair. His
shirt-sleeves were rolled up, showing arms smooth and round like a
woman's.

Just then, however, my attention was attracted by a new arrival. The
boy Freedham, having listlessly wandered across from Kensingtowe,
slouched on to the Nursery playground. He was a tall, weedy youth of
sixteen; and the unhealthiness of his growth was shown by the long,
graceless neck, the spare chest, and the thin wrists. There was a
weakness, too, at his knees which caused me to think that they had
once worked on springs which now were broken. But the greatest
abnormality was seen in his eyes. Startlingly large, startlingly
bright, they were sometimes beautiful and always uncanny.

This Freedham, with his slack gait and carriage, strolled towards a
railing and, resting both elbows on it, watched Doe at his cricket.
The whole picture is very clear on my mind. A sunny afternoon seemed
to have forgotten the time and only just made up its mind to merge
into a mellow evening: the boys, watching the game, were sending
their young and lively sounds upon the air; those of the smaller
cattle, whose interest had waned, were engaging with the worst taste
in noisy French cricket: the flannelled figures of the players, with
their wide little chests, neat waists, and round hips, promised fine
things for the manhood of England ten years on: at the wicket stood
the attractive figure of Edgar Doe in an occupation very congenial
to him--that of shining: and Chappy had just said: "I say, Radley,
don't you think this generation of boys is the most shapely lot
England has turned out? I wonder what use she'll make of them," when
he saw Freedham's entry and opened a new conversation.

"That's old Freedham's boy over there, isn't it?" he asked.
"Shocking specimen."

"Yes, he's a day-boy. You know his father, the doctor?"

"Doctor be damned!" answered Chappy. "He's no more a doctor than a
Quaker's a Christian. Old Freedham's surgery is a bally schism-shop.
He's one of those homoeopathic Johnnies, and would be blackballed on
societies of which I'm a vice-president. You know--just as I can
never go into dissenting chapels without feeling certain of the
presence of evil spirits--my wife says it's the stuffiness of the
atmosphere, but I say: 'No, my dear, it's evil spirits; I know
what's evil spirits and what's bad air'--well, just so I could never
go into old Freedham's--but I'm not likely to be asked.
Doctor--bah!"

And Chappy flung away the moist and masticated end of his cigar and
all such nonsensical ideas with it. Then he took a new cigar from
his case, proceeding:

"And the man's not only a nonconformist in the Medicine Creed, but
he's actually a deacon in a Presbyterian chapel--or something
equally heathen--and a fluent one at that, I expect. I make a point
of never trusting those people. Look at his sickening son and heir
yonder. Did you ever see an orthodox doctor produce a cockchafer
like that? That's homoeopathy, that is--"

And Chappy flourished his new cigar towards Freedham.

Doe, too, had seen Freedham's entry, and some sign of recognition
passed between them. The next ball came swiftly and threateningly
down upon the leg side, and Doe, perhaps with the nervousness
consequent upon the arrival of a new critic before whom he would
fain do well, stepped back. A shout went up as it was seen that the
ball had taken the leg bail. Doe looked flurried at this sudden
dismissal and a bit upset. He involuntarily shot a glance at
Freedham and after some hesitation left the crease. He rather
dragged his bat and drooped his head as he walked to the pavilion,
till, realising that this might be construed into an ungracious
acceptance of defeat, he brought his head erect and swung his bat
with a careless freedom.

"Heavens!" murmured Radley. "Isn't he self-conscious?"

Chappy didn't hear. He was taken up in applauding the stylish
innings of the retiring batsman, and swearing he would stand the boy
a liquor.

"Bravo, Doe!" he shouted. "Don't think you can play cricket, 'cos
you can't. So there!"

Doe entered blushing and stood nervously by an empty chair near
Radley, who read his meaning and said: "Sit there, if you like."

My friend put the chair very close to his hero and, having sat in
it, began to remove his pads. I think Radley was pleased with this
action and liked having the worshipping youth beside him. The fall
of Doe's wicket had brought my innings nearer and started a fresh
attack of stage-fright. In my agitation movement seemed imperative.
So I came and reclined on the ground by Edgar, intruding myself on
his notice by asking:

"That beastly tapeworm Freedham spoilt your game, didn't he?"

Edgar heard my question, and his lips fumbled with a reply. The face
that he turned upon me was a deep plum-pink from recent running and
surmounted with fair hair whose disordered ends were darkened with
moisture.

"No," he said; "at least, I don't know him. But what's it to do with
you?"

This remark was sufficiently discouraging to impel me on to my feet
and to send me to districts where I should be less unpopular. I
conceived the idea of examining Freedham at nearer range. Perhaps I
was jealous of him. Though as yet I had no unordinary love for Doe,
I had a sense of proprietorship in him which was quickened the
minute it was disturbed. So I moored myself on the railing about
three yards from Freedham. This could easily be managed, Freedham
being one of those boys who were always alone. For a little I
pretended to watch the game and then stole a furtive, sideways
glance at his lank profile. I had immediate cause to wish I had done
nothing of the sort, for he turned his unholy eyes on mine and so
disconcerted me that I swung my face back upon the cricket field and
affected complete indifference. I even hummed a little ditty to show
that if any mind was free from the designs of the private detective,
mine was. But my acting was not made easier by the certainty that
Freedham's eyes were steadily examining my burning cheek. And, if it
be possible to see a question in eyes which you are only imagining,
I saw in Freedham's: "What the blazes do you want?" After giving him
time to forget me, I turned again to look at him. But once more I
caught his weird orbs full upon mine, and muttering. "Oh, dash!"
concentrated my attention on the cricket.

A few minutes later the heavy wooden rail on which I was leaning
began to vibrate horribly. I looked in alarm at Freedham. He was
standing rigid, as though sudden death had stiffened him upright.
His left hand was grasping the railing, and through this channel an
electric trembling of his whole frame had communicated itself to the
wood. His face was unnaturally red, and his right hand had passed
over his heart which it was pressing. His eyes were fixed on the
cricket match.

My first sensation, I confess, was one of pride at being the boy to
discover Freedham in what appeared to be a fit. I went quickly to
him and said: "I say, Freedham. Freedham, what's the matter?"

"N-nothing," he replied, still stiff and trembling. "But it's
all--right. I shall be quite--fit again in a minute. Don't look at
me."

"But shall I get you water or something?"

"No. It's all right. I've had these attacks before. In class
sometimes and--I've conquered them, and--no one's known anything
about them. So don't tell anyone about this. Promise."

It cost me something to throw away the prospect of telling this
thrilling story of which I had exclusive information, but the man in
pain is master of us all, so I readily promised.

"All right, Freedham. That's all right."

Though some years his junior, I said it much as a mother would
soothe a frightened child to sleep.

"Thanks awfully," said Freedham gratefully.

"Oh, by the by, there's old Dr. Chapman over there. Should I fetch
him?"

"No, damn you!" cried my patient with extraordinary conviction.
"Can't you mind your own infernal business and leave me to mind
mine?"

This was so rude that I felt quite justified in leaving him to mind
his own infernal business, whatever it might be. I strolled away.

Now, with this interesting performance of Freedham's, my desire to
describe this cricket match ends. There was a hot finish, but, in
spite of some fortunate overs from myself, the Suckers won. The last
wicket down, Chappy got out of his deck-chair with a sudden
quickness which suggested that such was the only method of
successfully getting his fat self upon his feet; and, when he had
shaken down his white waistcoat and said: "Bye-bye, Radley. Reg'lar
meals, no smoke, and you may grow into a fine lad yet," carried
himself off with the awkward leg-work of a heavy-bodied man,
cheerily acknowledging the greetings of the little Sucker boys, and
prodding the fattest of them in the ribs. Radley strolled away,
followed by the wondering looks of boys who were told that this big
man was S.T. Radley, of Middlesex. Freedham, quite recovered,
returned to his day-boy roof among the endless roofs of Kensingtowe
Town. And I plied homeward to Bramhall House, depressed by the
prospect of Preparation for the rest of the evening, and by the
restored consciousness of Fillet's hostility, which, forgotten
during the cricket match, now came back upon me like a sense of
foreboding.




CHAPTER III

AWFUL ROUT OF RAY


§1

The following afternoon I was looking rather glumly out of a window
at the broad playing fields which, in the greyness of a rainy day,
seemed as deserted as myself. From my place I could see nearly all
the red-brick wall that surrounds Kensingtowe grounds; I could see
the iron railings which, at long intervals, break the monotony of
the wall. Now the railings of Kensingtowe, like all places with sad
memories, have an honourable place in my heart.

Naturally it was a rule, strictly enforced, that boys must make
their exit from the fields by going through the Bramhall gate rather
than over the railings. Naturally, too, this rule was sometimes
disregarded, for the architect, whom I deem a desirable soul, had
made the passage over the railings invitingly possible by means of
some well-placed cross-pieces, which he sketched into his designs,
saying (I imagine): "We shall have the lads climbing over at this
point--well, God bless 'em--I hope they're not caught and whopped
for it." Right at the farthest corner of the field was the Bramhall
gate, which--But the Bramhall gate needn't interest us: _we_ leave
by the railings.

The noise of a footstep disturbing the gravel caused me to look
down. A boy, hatless, ran across to the wall and walked guiltily
beneath it till he reached the railings. The fairness of his hair
arrested my attention. And, while I was wondering what any boy might
be doing hatless in the rain, my friend Doe had grasped the
railings, pulled himself to their top, and dropped on to the
pavement beyond.

Now, my dear Watson, here was a case of exceptional interest. In all
the annals of criminal investigation I know of none that presented
possibilities more bizarre, none that called more urgently for the
subtlest qualities of the private detective. I rushed out of the
building, letting doors slam behind me. Quickly I reached the
railings, raised myself to the top, and glanced down the road in
time to see Doe join the lank and sinister figure of Freedham at the
corner.

But alas! just over the road was Bramhall House, Fillet's own
kingdom, and even at that moment I saw a bald head emerge from its
central doorway. A feeling that was partly terror and partly temper
manacled me to the top of the railings; and after a few tense
seconds I was gazing fascinated into a little bearded face which was
staring with interest up at me. It was Carpet Slippers, and he may
be said to have been round a corner.

"Oh, dash!" I muttered. And then, as I stared down at him, thinking
it right that he, by virtue of his seniority, should open the
conversation, I gradually began to feel better, for I remembered
that it was War.

"Hallo, Ray," said Fillet, "what may you be d-d-doing up there?"

"Climbing over, sir." (Indeed, what more obvious?)

"Oh, you-you are climbing over, are you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, indeed."

When I saw that he was trifling with me, I determined that he should
know it was War. Defiantly I answered:

"Yes, sir. Climbing over. YES, SIR. *YES, SIR*."

Fillet went white, but he only sucked in his breath and said:

"Oh, indeed. And d-d-do you contemplate coming down?"

I borrowed a favourite word of Penny's. "Ultimately, sir."

"Ah! you do, do you? Well, wh-when you 'ultimately' come down, you
will go straight to my study."

"Delighted, sir." The blood rushed to my face as I realised my own
impudence, but I was glad that I had said it.

Fillet went his way, and I came down from my railing, combating the
sickening certainty that I had made a fool of myself, and
determining to believe in the splendour of my attitude and to carry
it through to victory. Carry on, Rupert, carry on. Onward, Christian
soldiers.

I sauntered over to Bramhall House and climbed the stairs to the
house-master's study. Hearing Fillet grunt at my knock, I walked in
to execution.

"Oh, let's see, Ray, you were cl-climbing over, weren't you?"

"I believe so, sir."

"Oh, indeed. Then you shall write five hundred lines of Cicero.
You'll play no games till they're done."

Five hundred Latin lines! God! I had nerved myself for physical
punishment, but for nothing so dreadful as this. This meant long
days of confinement with hard, hard labour. A great mass of tears
rose from somewhere and came dangerously near the surface. But I
kept them down and tried to show, though there was a catch in my
voice, that I was still unbroken.

"Yes, sir. Anything further?"

"Yes indeed." Carpet Slippers sucked in his breath. "A further
hundred lines. P-p-perhaps that'll teach you that rebellion is
expensive."

I swallowed the tears. "No, sir. That won't teach me."

"So? Well, let's say yet another hundred."

Mentally stunned and bleeding, but ready to do battle with the Day
of Judgment itself, I retorted:

"That won't teach me either, sir."

"Oh, indeed. Then we'll add another _three_ hundred--eh?--making a
thousand in all."

And at that point I shamefully broke off the fight. It wasn't
fair--he had all the artillery. I held back the tears, fast
gathering in volume, and gave up the unequal contest. One day my own
guns would come. Quite respectfully I said "Yes, sir," and walked
out. The vanguard of that mighty array of tears had forced its way
as far as my eyes, which felt suspiciously moist. In fact, as I shut
the door and found myself alone--absolutely alone--they nearly came
forth in full cataract. But I saved the situation by thinking hard
of other things and whistling loudly.

I went to an open window in the corridor and, looking out, saw that
the sun had just dispelled the rain. The railings of Kensingtowe
over the roadway were still burnished and glistening with wet, as
were the leaves of shrubs and trees. And the air that touched my
cheek was all soft and sweet-smelling after rain. Resting my elbows
on the window-sill, I told myself that I hated Carpet Slippers;
that I hated Doe and it was all his fault; that I wouldn't do the
lines--I wouldn't do them; that I didn't care if I was expelled;
Kensingtowe was a beastly school, and Bramhall was its filthiest
house.

The sound of a step in the corridor behind me arrested my thoughts.
I leaned farther out of the window and muttered: "Oh, I hope he
won't speak to me. I hope he'll pass by. I hate him, whoever he is.
O God, make him pass by," for I knew there was a moisture in my
eyes. I hurriedly held them wide open, that they might dry in the
sun.

"Ray?" It was Radley's voice, but I wilfully paid no attention.

In a second he had laid violent hands on me and swung me round, so
that I was held facing him.

"What? Crying, Ray? That's a luxury we men must deny ourselves."

It seems, as I recall it, a fine sentence, but at that moment, when
I wanted to be a wild ass among men, it was a _lie_. The hot blood
flooded my forehead. "I'm _not_ crying!" I snapped, keeping my face
upturned, my eyes fixed on his, and my teeth firmly set, that he
might see that he had lied.

"No, of course you're not. But come, now, Ray, what's the matter?
Out with it! There's nobody but me to hear you. And I understand."

I didn't want him to speak kindly to me, for I hated him. So I said
in a rapid, trembling voice:

"I've got a thousand lines from Mr. Fillet. I didn't deserve them
and I'm not going to do them!"

Immediately I felt that a catastrophe had occurred--that an edifice,
which had been standing a second ago, was now no more. Before that
sentence I had faced a kindly friend, now I faced an offended
master. But, though I knew the ruin my words had wrought, I indulged
a glow of self-righteousness and was prepared to relate my defiance
to an approving world.

"Come with me," commanded Radley. Swinging round, he walked towards
his room. At first I remained at the window without moving, and
waited for him to turn his head and tell me a second time to come.
But he walked on, never entertaining the thought of my not obeying
him. And I followed, armed with indifference. It was a pity that
walking behind him should give me so fine a view of his splendid
proportions and inflate me with strange aspirations, for I hated the
man and _wanted_ to do so. I hated him--let no other thought replace
that.

He led me to his room and said "Come in." I entered and, when I had
closed the door, looked aimlessly about, taking little interest in
the suggestive fact that Radley was opening a cupboard. There was
little change in my countenance when he placed himself opposite me
with his cane in his hand.

"You have been very rude to me in speaking defiantly of your
house-master. Do you understand?"

There was no alternative for me but to say "Yes, sir." The answer
came huskily. I was annoyed that my voice sounded hoarse.

"Put out your hand."

I obeyed, stretching out my right hand as far as I could and
displaying no perturbation, though I was wondering what it would be
like to be caned on the hand. This was one of Radley's surprises,
and he followed it with one of his brutal remarks:

"Put that right hand down. You'll need it to be in good condition
for writing your lines. Put up your left."

I held out my left hand. The cane sang in the air and whistled on to
my open palm. A spasm of pain passed up my arm, my hand closed
convulsively, my elbow drooped, and that vast array of tears made a
tremendous effort to carry everything before them. But with all the
strength at my command I got the better of them. Angry at having
closed my hand, I extended the scorching palm again, and, very pale
and trembling perceptibly, looked with set features straight at
Radley.

He threw the cane away and, sitting on the edge of his table, took
hold of the hand that he had struck and drew me towards him.

"Don't you think, Ray, that you, who can take a licking so pluckily,
ought to face bad luck in a less cowardly fashion than you have this
afternoon? You'll meet worse things than lines before you're ten
years older; and, Ray, I want you always to face your fate, whatever
it may be, as you faced my cane--teeth set, no wincing."

It was a stroke of master play. His gentleness, following
immediately upon his severity, burst the dam. His words were an
"Open Sesame" to the leaky floodgates I had held so tightly closed.
I hung my head and the huge throng of tears broke forth. Wo-ho, what
a cascade! My eyes overflowed with salt tears and my nose wanted
wiping. Oh, waly, waly. Radley seemed indisposed to let go of my
left hand, so I was compelled to search for my handkerchief with my
right. After sounding the depths of four pockets, I found it, a
singularly dirty one, in the fifth. And, while great internal sobs
shook my frame with the regularity of minute-guns, Radley spoke so
nicely that I determined I would be everything he wanted, a really
beautiful character--always providing that it didn't interfere with
my war with Fillet. For one day--one great and distant day--I would
terribly overthrow that little old pantaloon.

"Now, Ray, we must get someone to dictate a few of these lines to
you."

I looked up and smiled. "Thank you very much, sir," and I
unconsciously pressed his hand.

"Doe is your friend. We'll test his metal and see whether he thinks
friendship is something more than getting into scrapes together." He
touched a bell. "I'll send for him."

I gave a sudden shiver. Doe was out in the world with Freedham,
probably without an "exeat," and certainly without a hat. I began to
wonder whether by a dramatic _dénouement_ I was to be the cause of
Doe's capture.

"You rang, sir?" inquired the manservant.

"Yes; find Master Doe. He's in the house."

"Yes, sir." The door closed, and it was too late. Too late for what?
I was sure I didn't know, for there was nothing I could have done to
prevent the search for Doe. Late emotion had left, I suppose, my
imagination in an overwrought state. And I had reason to wonder if I
was moving in a dream, when, after a knock at the door, Doe walked
in, his eyes sparkling at having been sent for by the object of his
worship.

"Now, Doe," began Radley, with a smile--

          "This life's mostly froth and bubble.
             Two things stand like stone:
           Kindness in another's trouble,
             Courage in your own.

Ray's just got a thousand lines of Cicero. But he understands all
about 'courage in your own,' and you understand all about 'kindness
in another's trouble.'"

"Yes, sir," agreed Doe, a bit bewildered, but instantly prepared to
live up to this noble reputation.

"Well, what do you say to dictating some of the lines to him?"

"Rather, sir. I'll dictate them.... Besides, sir," he added, as if
this explained everything, "Ray and I are twins."


§2

And not a game did Doe play until he had dictated all those lines.
It occupied a week and two days. When I dropped my pen, having
written the last word, the relief of thinking that I had no more
lines to write was almost painful. I felt suddenly ill. My loins,
aching alarmingly, reminded me that I had been in a sitting posture
for many a weary hour; and my fingers, suffering from what I judged
to be rheumatism or gout, fidgeted to go on writing. My mind, too,
was confused so that I found myself repeating whole lines of Cicero,
sometimes aloud; and my face was pale, save for a dangerous pink
flush on the forehead.

Life, however, seemed brightened by the sense of a task completed,
and I began to think of someone else besides myself.

"I say, Doe," I asked, "aren't you going to tell me where you were
going when you joined that knock-kneed idiot Freedham?"

"No," announced Doe.

"But look here," I began, and was just about to tell him that
Freedham was an unwholesome creature who had mysterious fits like a
demoniac, when I remembered my promise of silence: so I went on
lamely: "You will tell me one day, won't you?"

"No," he repeated, feeling very firm and adamant and Napoleonic.

"But, my darling blighter, why not?"

"Because I don't choose to."

"Then you're a pig. But you might, Doe. Out with it. There's nobody
but me to hear you. And I understand."

"No."

"Well, tell me, how did you get back so early?"

"You see," answered Doe, cryptically, "the sun came out; and when
the sun came out, I came in."

It was a romantic sentence such as would delight this rudimentary
poet. Why he condescended to break his mighty silence even to this
extent, I don't know. It was perhaps a boyish love of hinting at a
secret which he mustn't disclose. An awful idea struck me. I say it
was awful because, though stirring in itself, it brought the thought
that I was left out of it.

"Oh, Doe, have you--have you a SECRET SOCIETY?"

"No."

"Here, hang me, Doe," I said, "you're not only a shocking bad
conversationalist, but also a little mad. That's your doctor's
opinion. That'll be a guinea, please."

And I got up to take the lines to Fillet.

"I say, Rupert," said Doe, blushing and looking away.

"Well?" I asked, with my hand on the door-knob.

"I say," he stuttered, "you--you might just mention to Radley that I
dictated _all_ the lines. It would sort of--I mean--Oh, but you
needn't, if you don't want to."


§3

That night there happened in Bramhall House one of those strange
events that are best chronicled in a few cold sentences. That night,
I say, while honest men and boys slept, Mr. Fillet sat up in bed and
listened. He distinctly heard movements in his study below. Jumping
up, he slided into his carpet slippers and crept downstairs. There
was a light in his study. He looked round the half-open door and saw
the back view of a boy in pyjamas. The whole incident is much too
sinister for me to remind you frivolously that little Carpet
Slippers was once again round his corner. He began: "Wh-what are you
doing?" and the boy at once did what any properly constituted
midnight visitor should do--switched off the electric light. When
Mr. Fillet, with a heart going like a motor engine, found the switch
and flooded the room with light, there was, of course, no one there.
But on his writing-table lay his cane, broken into pieces, and my
own copy of the thousand lines torn into little bits.




CHAPTER IV

THE PREFECTS GO OVER TO THE ENEMY


§1

What more exciting than for the whole school to learn by rumour the
next morning that all the prefects of Bramhall House had been
mysteriously withdrawn from their Olympian class-rooms to a special
cabinet meeting under the presidency of Stanley, the gorgeous
house-captain? Clearly some awful crime had been committed at
Bramhall, and there would be a public whacking and an expulsion. We
humans may or may not be brutal, but life is certainly more
stimulating when there is an execution in the air.

Chattering, prophesying, and wondering who was the criminal, we
found our way to our various class-rooms. It being First Period,
Doe, Penny, and I were under Radley's stern rule and obliged to sit
quietly in our desks, knowing that he would allow no more licence on
this exciting day than on any other. Our heads were bent over our
work when Bickerton, the junior prefect of Bramhall, entered the
room, approached the master's desk, and spoke in an undertone to
Radley.

I saw--for I was gazing at the new arrival over my work--Radley look
astonished, and turn his eyes in my direction.

"Ray."

"Yes, sir."

"You're wanted in the Prefects' Room."

I remember the universal flutter of excitement and surprise; I
remember Doe raising his head like a startled deer as I went out and
shut the door; I remember catching, from outside, Radley's sharp
rebuke, "Get on with your work." His voice sounded strangely
distant, and seemed to be on the happier side of a closed door.

Bickerton, who was enjoying himself, walked in front; and I followed
behind, bringing my attention to bear upon keeping in step.
Rearranging my stride now and then, I marched through the empty
corridors, listening to the drone of masters' voices teaching in
their class-rooms, and wondering at the loudness of our footsteps.
The sight of the prefects' door gave me my first sense of fear.

Being a prefect and thus mightily privileged, Bickerton turned the
door-handle of the room without knocking. It was like laying a hand
upon the Ark. Into the holy place Doe and I had passed before, not
as prisoners, but as patronised pets who were suffered to amuse the
august tenants with our "lip" until we became too disrespectful,
when we would be ejected with a kick. This morning it struck strange
and cold to hear Bickerton say:

"Here's the little bounder."

I entered, and saw the whole array of Bramhall prefects assembled,
Stanley, their senior, presiding. Bickerton shut the door
ceremoniously.

There were twelve of them, and every man was a blood. They had
reached a solemn age and, in the dignity of their bloodhood, were
quite unaware that they were playing at a mock-trial and enjoying
it. I'm sure none of them would have missed it. Were Stanley alive
now, instead of lying beneath the sea off Gallipoli, he would be
twenty-seven years of age, very junior in his profession, and
therefore much younger than when he was a house-captain of nineteen:
and he would admit that on this famous occasion he and his
fellow-prefects were highly pleased with the transaction entrusted
to them. For at twenty-seven we are people who have been old and now
are young again.

His team sat down two sides of a long table, and himself was
enthroned at the top in front of foolscap and blotting-paper. It was
a splendid tribunal.

I tried to persuade myself that I was perfectly comfortable, and
could, if need be, show my easy conscience by a little old-time
impudence. In reality my heart was fluttering, and a perspiration
had broken out upon my head and the palms of my hands. My brows I
wiped on my sleeve, and my hands I rubbed on the seat of my
trousers. Nor had I lost the headache which asserted itself directly
my long imposition was done. My forehead felt as if it had swollen
and extended the skin across it like elastic. And for the last
twelve hours my face had been warm and burning.

"Now, Rupert Ray," said Stanley, "we want you to own up to this
blooming business of last night. So fire away."

"I don't know what you're gassing about," said I.

"Now don't be sulky. You'll only make matters worse by trying to
bluff us. And goodness knows they're bad enough as it is."

"Oh, to think how we've been disappointed in you!" interposed
Bickerton, who had taken up a position on the fender. "To think how
we've cherished this viper in our bosom!" And he raised his hands in
mock despair.

"Now don't be an ass, Bicky," said Stanley, who deemed that a Court
of Inquiry over which he presided was much too weighty an affair to
be approached with levity; "it's no joking matter. The kid's in a
beastly mess, and, when he owns up, we must try to get him off as
lightly as possible. I think perhaps we've let this youth and his
chum, the Gray Doe, get too cheeky, and to that extent we're to
blame.... Now, Ray, answer me some questions. Did you get a thousand
lines from our revered housemaster, Carpet--Mr. Fillet?"

"Yes."

"When did you complete them?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"In short, on the afternoon immediately preceding the tragedy which
took place in the microscopic hours of this morning?"

"Yes, I s'pose so."

"That's a remarkable coincidence, isn't it?"

"I'm bothered if I see why."

"My dear child, you really mustn't be 'bothered' in here. It's gross
disrespect to my brother-prefects--my colleagues. Besides, you knew
perfectly well that in the stilly night a malicious attempt was made
upon--not upon the life--but upon the cane of Mr. Fillet, which is,
after all, the life and soul of the little man."

There was laughter in court, in which his worship joined.

"O law!" ejaculated I, as things began to fall into shape.

"Really, child, such expressions as 'O law!' are out of order,
especially when they're only so much bluff.... I must now approach a
subject which may have sordid recollections for you, but in the
interest of the law I am bound to allude to it. Were you
whacked--ahem!--chastised a few days ago by the aforesaid Mr.
Fillet?"

"Yes."

"When did the old gaffer--when did Mr. Fillet whack you?"

"Yes, tell the gentleman that," put in Kepple-Goddard, a prefect who
felt that he was not playing a sufficiently imposing part and wished
to have his voice heard.

"A week ago last Monday," I answered.

"Where did he whack you?" pursued Stanley.

"On the recognised spot."

"Now, don't be cheeky. In what place did he whack you?"

"Why, in his class-room, of course," I retorted. "Where do you think
he'd do it? In the High Street?" As I said this I was seized with a
nervous fit of giggling.

"Look here, sonny," said Kepple-Goddard, rapping on the table,
"you're going the right way towards getting a prefects' whacking for
contempt of court."

Stanley raised his hand for silence.

"Why did he whack you?"

"Because he couldn't get my sum right."

Here Banana-Skin, a large and overbearing prefect, so called because
of his yellowish complexion, burst in with the skill of a
prosecuting counsel:

"Oh, then, are we to understand that you were whacked unjustly and
had reason for vindictiveness?"

"Go easy, Banana-Skin," protested Stanley. "Don't bully the kid."

"But," I said, beginning to feel that horrid array of tears
mobilising again, "that was some time before he gave me the lines--"

"Don't beat about the bush," interrupted Banana-Skin. "Did you feel
that you hated him?"

The question was not answered at once. I cannot explain how it was,
but the figure of Radley stood very clearly before my mind's eye,
and this helped me to speak the truth, though my voice broke a bit.

"Yes."

"Ah!" Everybody considered Banana-Skin to have elicited a damning
admission.

"Now," continued Stanley, his curiosity superseding his sense of
what was relevant, "how many cuts did he give you?"

"Ten."

"Poor little beggar! Didn't that seem to you rather a lot?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Now answer the Coroner that," commanded Kepple-Goddard.

"Yes," I replied.

"H'm!" grunted Stanley. "How did you know where you could find your
thousand lines so that you could tear them up?"

"I don't know what you mean. _You're_ bluffing now."

"Hallo!" cried Banana-Skin. "Didn't you hear him say '_You're_
bluffing now'? That shows that _he_ was bluffing before."

"Oh, that's a bit _too_ clever!" objected Stanley. "Give the kid a
chance."

There's nothing like sympathy for provoking misery and starting
tears, and, as Stanley uttered that sentence, I decided that God had
gone over to the prefects, and I would very much like to cry. To
drive back the tears I called to my aid all the callousness and
sulkiness which I possess. My face was the portrait of a sulky
schoolboy as Stanley continued:

"Now, Ray, which door did you leave the dormitory by?"

"I didn't leave it."

"I say," suggested Kepple-Goddard, "couldn't we send Bickerton to
ask all the boys who sleep in the same dormitory whether they saw
him leave it?"

"But they'd have been asleep, you ox!" put in Banana-Skin.

"Not necessarily."

"But it doesn't follow that, if they didn't see him leave
the dormitory, he didn't do it," objected Banana-Skin, the
self-constituted prosecuting counsel, who didn't want to see his
case fall to the ground.

"Not quite. But if they _did_ see him, it proves him a liar and
pretty well shows that he did."

"There's more sense in Kepple's idea than one would expect," gave
Stanley as his decision. "Dash away, Bicky, and find out."

So Bickerton--or shall I call him Mercury, the messenger of the
gods?--went, and I remained. It was no matter to me what news he
brought back. I stood there, in the lions' den, and counted the
cracks in the ceiling. I counted, also, the number of corners that
the room possessed, and remembered how these same prefects had often
(as when gods disport themselves) tried to make Doe and me stand in
them for what they termed "unmitigated cheek"; how, giggling, we
would fight them and kick them till they surrounded us and held us
with our faces to the wall; and how we would call them all the rude
names we could think of till they stuffed handkerchiefs in our
mouths as a gag. One of their favourite pastimes had been to do
Doe's hair, which they darkened with their wet brushes. It was
usually a difficult business, as Doe would treat the whole operation
in a disorderly spirit and declare that it tickled.

Presently Bickerton was heard running up the corridor (rather
undignified for a prefect) and came bursting into the room.

"Now listen," said he, somewhat out of breath, and looking at a
sheet of paper which he held in his hand. "Two boys saw Ray get up
and leave the dormitory last night. They sleep on either side of
him, and their names are Pennybet and Doe. The latter isn't sure
whether he dreamt it."

"Well, Ray, what have you got to say to that?" asked Stanley.

"Nothing," I answered, "except that, if it's true, I must have been
walking in my sleep. I did once, when I was a small boy."

Stanley ignored my feeble defence. He submitted to his colleagues
that it was all his eye and Betty Martin; and the others nodded
assent. Then the Chairman, recovering from his slight relapse into
the vernacular of the Fourth Form, enunciated the following
remarkable sentence:

"This inquest has, you will agree, been conducted by me in a
strictly impartial and disinterested way, and the proceedings have
been conspicuous for the absence of any bias, prejudice, or
bigotry."

"Whew!" whistled several boys. Stanley let a grin hover in a
well-bred way about his lips as he recommenced, the sentence being
well-prepared and worth repeating:

"There has been no bias, prejudice, or bigotry. Well, gentlemen, is
the corpse guilty or not guilty?"

"Guilty, the little beast!"

I went out of that cruel room resolved that "beneath all the
bludgeonings of chance my head should be bloody but unbowed." I was
unconquerable! I walked along the corridor, blown out with injured
virtue--a King among men. We assure you, our beloved subjects, we
were Rupert Head-in-Air.


§2

I returned to Radley's class-room and entered jauntily. All eyes
turned and followed me as I walked to the master's desk. The
excitement experienced by each boy seemed communicated to me. Radley
feigned indifference.

"Well?" said he.

"I've come back, sir."

"Right. Go and sit down."

Scarcely had I reached my seat before the bell rang loudly for the
Interval. The boys in their anxiety to hear the latest news flowed
out hurriedly. I lingered apprehensively behind. At last I summoned
up courage to venture into the corridor, where I found a group of
boys awaiting me. Through these I broke at a rush and went and hid.

All that Interval lip tossed to lip such remarks as: "Ray did it."
"I say, have you heard Ray's the culprit?" "What'll be done to him?"
"Oh, the prefects have issued an edict that anyone who holds
communication with him will get a Prefects' Whacking." "Ray did it."
"What? that kid? Little devil--it's good-bye to him, I suppose."
"What'll Radley say? He's one of his latest bally pets." "Ray did
it."

After ten minutes the Second Period began. As our form went to Herr
Reinhardt, the great Mr. Cæsar, and he would certainly be late, I
dawdled in my hiding-place, not having the courage to face the boys
in the corridor. I waited till I conjectured that Mr. Cæsar must be
safe in his class-room, and the boys in their desks. Then I entered
his room, famous character as I was, and apologised for being late.
Mr. Cæsar wrote my name in the Imposition Book, but, having raised
his face and given one look at my swollen, tearful eyes, he
deliberately crossed the name out again. And, indeed, throughout
that period he so consistently refused to see that the boys were
showing detestation of my degrading presence, and was so
inexpressibly gentle in his manner towards me, that now I always
think of this weak-eyed German master as a quiet and Christian
gentleman.

When school-hours were over I went to a window, and there, leaning
on the sill, thought how badly my war was going. Fillet was winning;
he had won when he caned me for asking the number of the sum; he had
won when he gave me the thousand lines; and now he was assaulting in
mass formation with the whole school as his allies. Ah, well! as
Wellington said at Waterloo--it depended who could stand this
pounding longest, gentlemen.

And, as Wellington did, I would charge at the end of the day. One
splendid way of charging, I thought, would be to die immediately.
That would be most effective. How Fillet would prick up his ears on
Monday morning when he heard the Head Master say to the school
assembled in the Great Hall: "Your prayers are asked for your
schoolfellow, Rupert Ray, who is lying at the point of death." And
on Tuesday, when he should say in a shaking voice: "Your
schoolfellow, Ray, died early this morning. His passing was
beautiful; and may my last moments be like his." And then there
would be the Dead March.

Having no one to talk to, I drew out from among the crumbs and
rubbish in my pockets a letter that had arrived from my mother that
morning. My young mother's love for me was always of the extravagant
kind, and the words with which she closed this letter were:

     "I do hope you are having a magnificent time and that everybody
     is fond of you and nice to you. I must stop now, so good-bye,
     my darling little son, and God bless you. With heaps of love
     from your ever devoted and affectionate Mother."

It was funny that I had not even noticed those words when I
hurriedly read them in the morning. But now I found them strangely
comforting, strangely satisfying.

A slap on the back awoke me from my reverie. It was Doe.

"Come along, Rupert. I know you didn't do it. Or, if you did, I
don't care. We're twins."

"Go away. You'll get into a dreadful row if you're caught talking to
me."

"I don't care. They won't think any the worse of me, whatever they
do."

"Go away, I tell you. Or, if you don't, I shall have to, and I'm
very comfortable here."

"I shan't. And if you try to escape me I'll follow you."

"Oh, why can't you go away?" I grumbled with something like a sob.
"Go away. Go away."

But Doe persisted. In full view of the prefects he chatted gaily to
me. Once, as Radley passed, he slipped his arm into mine. And when
the master was out of hearing he asked:

"I s'pose Radley knows you're in Coventry?"

"Of course. Everybody does."

"Do you think he saw I had my arm in yours?"

"I should think so. You made it pretty obvious."

"I wonder what he thought."

All this time the skin on my forehead seemed to tighten and my
cheeks to tingle with warmth. Towards evening my temples began to
beat regularly. At these symptoms I was rather thrilled than
otherwise, for I felt there was a distinct prospect of my turning
the tables on everybody by dying.

At preparation the boys, with that lust to punish to which a crowd
is always susceptible, slid along the form to get as far from
me as possible and to leave plenty of room for myself and my
contamination.

In the dormitory no one spoke to me, but as I was getting into my
pyjamas one of the dormitory prefects burst in and addressed a
senior boy:

"I say, talking about this row of Rupert Ray's, isn't the Gray Doe
going to catch it to-morrow, by jove?"

In my anxiety about Doe I forgot that I was banned.

"What's he going to get?" My voice sounded husky and strange. The
boys didn't answer me or show that they had heard. They
ostentatiously proceeded with their conversation. Even Pennybet had
his back turned. I flung myself into my bed in a way that nearly
broke the springs, and, pulling the clothes furiously over my head,
left my bare feet showing, at which several boys laughed
contemptuously.

Oh, the horrid activity of my wide-awake brain! I couldn't sleep,
and even found difficulty in keeping my eyes shut. Once, as I raised
my weary lids, I found that the lights had gone out since I last
opened my eyes. And my headache, which had spread to the back of my
neck, was getting but little relief from my frequent changes of
position. Oh, the horrible conglomeration of ideas that crowded my
mind! Recent scenes and conversations entangled themselves in one
another. Ray did it--Ray did it--my darling little son--good-bye and
God bless you--there has been no bias, prejudice, or bigotry, but
heaps of love from your devoted and affectionate mother--Ray did
it--it's good-bye to him, I suppose--good-bye and God bless you--

"_Good-night, Ray_."

That must be Doe's voice; it came from reality and not from dreams:
it came loudly out of the silence of the dormitory and not from the
chorus of conflicting sentences droning in my mind: it was a real
voice, but I was too tired and too far lost in stupor to answer it:
good-night, Ray--it's good-bye to him, I suppose--heaps of
love--there was some comfort in that--heaps of love from your
devoted and affectionate mother. Ah! when shall I get properly off
to sleep? Let me turn over on to my other side and put my hand under
the pillow--but it was young Ray--Ray did it--Ray did it--how that
detestable sentence swells till it packs my head!--and I must be
asleep now, for I see Fillet fitting a rope across the door of an
unknown bedroom wherein I am confined with some invisible Terror
which drives me out of my bed: as I rush into the passage the rope
trips me up, and I fall forwards but am saved from injury by my
mother's arms: she catches me in the dark and says something about
my darling little son. And she remonstrates with Fillet, who is
standing by that dreadful bedroom door, till he merges into Stanley
listening shame-facedly to my mother's silvery, chiding laugh and
assuring her that the inquest was conducted in a strictly impartial
and disinterested way. He changes into old Doctor Chapman, who tells
her that Freedham died early this morning. For everything changes in
the dream except one thing: which is that there is a head aching
somewhere; now it is my own, now someone else's. I draw my mother
along a passage to a window and explain that the pencil-mark on the
glass is the register of my height. I put my back against the wall
to let her see that I can just reach the mark, when lo! it is a
great distance above me. I get on the cold stone window-sill that I
may reach it, and would fall a thousand feet, only something in my
breast goes "click"--and the dream was gone. With my return to
consciousness came the knowledge that the headache had been my own
throughout.

But it was terribly cold--and what a draught! Perhaps it was because
I was lying so dreadfully straight, whereas I generally lay curled
up. I wanted to bring my knees towards my chest, but couldn't move
my legs. How cold my chest was! Why had the bedclothes fallen away
and left it exposed to this horrible draught? I would have liked to
pull them right over my head that I might get warm again, but I was
too tired to make the effort. At last, however, the cold was more
than I could bear. So I put out both hands to pull up the
blankets--but could find none anywhere. God! I wasn't in bed at all,
but was standing!

The horror of that moment! A wild heart beat lawlessly at my side.
One more touch of terror, and it would rebel in utter panic. Why was
the dormitory so dark? Why had the little night-lamp gone out? And
the wooden floors were stone-cold like the window-sill in my dream.
I couldn't see if my bed were close to me or far away because of the
impenetrable darkness; but I was so very, very tired, and my eyes
were so uncomfortably warm with interrupted sleep that I must try to
feel my way. I put out my hand and touched a _padlock_. Like a
flash, it came with all its terror upon me: I was not in the
dormitory nor anywhere near it, but right away in a cellar below the
ground where there were some old lockers and play-boxes. Flinging
myself first to one side of the cellar and then to the other, I tore
at the walls in an agonised endeavour to get out. The last thing
that I remember was shrieking loudly and feeling a moisture rise to
my dry lips and pass down my chin.


§3

I awoke with a dull sense of impending trouble to find myself abed
in the Bramhall sick-room, into which long shafts of noonday
sunlight were streaming from behind drawn blinds. Looking down upon
me was Dr. Chapman, with his usual white waistcoat and moist cigar.

"Ah ha!" he said. "Now, Gem, what the dooce do you think is the
matter with you?"

I replied that I didn't know, and, just to see what he would say,
asked him why he called me "Gem."

"Gem? Whoever called you 'Gem'? Did I? Yes, of course I did--it's
short for Jeremiah."

"The gifted old liar!" I thought, while I demanded aloud his reason
for calling me "Jeremiah."

"Why, because you look so dam--miserable, as though your eyes would
gush out with water."

And partly at this idea, partly at his skill in getting out of a
difficulty, Chappy laughed so heartily that I laughed too, only with
this difference--that, whereas his laugh was like sounding brass,
mine was like a tinkling cymbal. Then he sat down by my bed and,
taking my wrist in one hand, pushed up the sleeve of my pyjama
jacket and felt my smooth, firm forearm. "Good enough," he said, and
proceeded to open the jacket down the front, and feel my chest and
waist, thumping me in both of them, and expecting me to gurgle
thereat like a sixpenny toy.

"You're all right," he decided, "except that you're an ass. Take
your medical man's word for it--you're an ass. My prescription is
'Cease to be lunatic three times daily and after eating.' My fee'll
be a guinea, please."

I said nothing, but looked at him for further advice.

"Confound you! Don't look at me with those Jeremiad eyes. What have
you been doing, moping indoors for the last ten days instead of
playing in the fresh air?"

"I wasn't moping--" I began sullenly.

"Now, sulky--sulky!" interrupted Chappy.

"I wasn't moping. I went and got a thousand lines from Mr. Fillet--"

"Yes, I know. The damned old stinker!" said Chappy, always coarse
and delightful.

I think I loved him for those words. I felt that my allies were
swinging into line for the great war against Carpet Slippers. There
was Doe, and now Chappy.

"I know all about it," continued the new ally, "and then you filled
your excitable mind with thoughts of revenge--eh?"

"Yes," I admitted, and looked down at the clean white sheet.

"And off you go on your midnight perambulations--the cold wakes you
up--and there's the devil to pay--and the old doctor to pay! One
guinea, please. And now I'm off."

"Oh, don't go," I pleaded, before I was aware of saying it. I didn't
want him to go, for he was an entertaining apothecary and a
sympathetic person, before whom I could act my sullenness and
aggrievement.

"Don't go? Why shouldn't I?" demanded Chappy, who seemed, however,
touched at my wanting him. "Now, my son, don't you run away with the
idea that you're of the slightest importance. All boys are the most
useless, burdensome, and expensive animals in the world. It wouldn't
matter twopence if they were all wiped out of existence--there'd be
a sigh of relief. So don't think it interesting that you're ill.
Because it isn't. And you ain't ill. So good-bye."

He disappeared into the matron's room next door, and his hearty
voice could be heard haranguing the lady:

"The Gem's got a healthy young constitution, but his brain's a
ticklish instrument. His _corpore_ is as _sano_ as you like, but his
_mens_ is rather too _excitabilis_. Ah ha! Matron, what it is to
move in this classic atmosphere! Certain sproutings of his
imagination must be repressed--push 'em down, Matron. Young beggar,
I'd sit on him and crush him. But then, it's all the fault of that
stuttering old barbarian slave-driver, Fillet."

Here the matron must have been speaking, for I heard no more till
Chappy began again:

"He's got a tough little breast, fine stomach-muscles, and limbs
firm and round enough to get him a prize in a Boy Show. But the
beast is spoiled as a specimen by his little Vesuvius of a mind. And
oh, Matron, I lied to him like an under-secretary. I said that boys
were the least important arrangements in the world, when, dammit--I
mean, God bless my soul--they're the most important things in
Creation, and this particular hotbed of the vermin has some of the
finest editions of them all. But never let the little blades know
it--never let 'em know it."

With that he must have taken his leave, for quiet assumed possession
of everything. I settled down to the boredom of the afternoon,
letting my eyes travel up and down the stripes of the wall-paper. Up
one stripe I went, down the next, and up the third, till I had
covered the whole of one wall. Then I tossed myself on to my other
side with an audible groan that gave me but little relief, since
there was no one to hear. The day wore on, and the long streaks of
light worked their way round the room, grew ruddier, and climbed up
the wall.

Oh, wearisome, wearisome afternoon! I began to sing quietly to
myself such songs as I knew: "Rule, Brittania," "God save the King,"
and "A Life on the Ocean Wave." This I gave up at last, and thought
out _corking_ replies that I might have made to the prefects, had my
wit been readier.

"Ding-ding-ding!" That was tea. Would Doe be any less happy when he
saw my vacant place, and wonder if I were very ill? How was Penny
feeling, who had lifted up his heel against me? Might he, together
with Stanley and his colleagues, think me dying! What would Stanley
and the prefects do to Doe for his flagrant breach of their edict?
Perhaps at this moment he was being tried by the great Stanley and
his Tribunal. Perhaps even now they had him bent over a chair and
were giving him a Prefects' Whacking. At any rate, I wished he would
walk in his sleep or do something that would bring him to this
monotonous sick-room. Why shouldn't he? Like me, he had been immured
indoors for ten days; like me, also, he had reasons for being
unhealthily excited.

"Ding-ding-ding!" I had closed my eyes when this bell sounded. It
meant Preparation, so it must be getting dark. I would open my eyes
and see. I did so, and saw nothing except darkness, which made me
think I must have dozed. The sudden view of the darkness frightened
me, for I remembered the terror of the preceding night and that,
before many hours, the whole world would be silenced in sleep, while
I might be wandering in the fearful cellars. At the thought my lips
formed the words: "O God, don't make me wake again in the Old
Locker Room. O God, don't. I wish I had somebody to talk to."

As I mechanically uttered this prayer, I began to feel rather
strongly that, if I were going to ask God to make this arrangement
for me, I ought to do something for Him. Clearly I must get out of
bed and say my prayers properly. So I stepped on to the floor,
reeling dizzily from my enforced recumbence, and knelt by the side
of the bed. Falling into prayers that I knew by heart, and scarcely
heeding what I was saying, I prayed (as my mother had taught me to
do when I was a little knickerbockered boy) for the whole chain of
governesses who had once taken charge of me. I enumerated them by
their nicknames: "Tooby and Dinky and Soaky and Miss Smith."
Trapping myself in this mistake, I actually blushed as I knelt
there. I realised that I must be more up to date. So I prayed for
Penny, Freedham, Stanley, Bickerton, and Banana-Skin, but I drew up
abruptly at Carpet Slippers. I couldn't forgive him. I felt I ought
to, but I couldn't. There, on my knees, I thought it all out; and at
last light broke upon me. To forgive didn't necessarily mean to
forgo the punishment. Yes, I would forgive him and pray for him, but
his punishment would go on just the same.

After this satisfactory compromise I got back into bed, happy at
being spiritually solvent, and repeating: "O God, don't make me wake
in the Old Locker Room; I wish I had someone to talk to."

And almost immediately, as if my prayers were to be answered, I
heard the noise of feet running towards my door. It opened, and
Bickerton, taking no notice of me, walked to the middle of the room,
struck a match, and lit the gas. Returning quickly, he said to
someone else who was approaching: "Oh, there you are. I've lit the
gas. Bring him and get him to bed. Put him beside the other ass for
company." I sat up in my excitement, and with a thrill--first of
elation and then of dismay--saw Stanley enter, bearing a boy, who,
with arms and legs hanging limply downwards, was apparently
lifeless: his fair head was a contrast with Stanley's dark blue
sleeve on which it rested, and his brown eyes, wide open, were
shining in the gas like glass.


§4

In committee that morning Stanley and his colleagues had decided
that Doe had deliberately asked for a Prefects' Whacking, and must
therefore be given an extra severe dose. He should be summoned to
judgment after games. So, just as Doe, who was standing bare-chested
in the changing room, had pushed his head into his vest, a voice,
shouting to him by name, obliged him to withdraw it that he might
see his questioner. It was Pennybet, acting as Nuncius from the
prefects.

"You're in for it, Edgar Doe," said this graceful person, leisurely
taking a seat and watching Doe dress. "I'm Cardinal Pennybet, papal
legate from His Holiness Stanley the Great. Bickerton had the sauce
to send for me and to describe me as a ringleader in all your
abominations. I represented to him that he was a liar, and had been
known to be from his birth, and that he probably cheated at Bridge;
and he told me to jolly well disprove his accusation by fetching you
along. I explained they were making beasts of themselves over this
Ray business--"

"It would have been more sporting of you," said Doe, drawing on his
trousers and thanking Heaven that he was not as other men, nor even
as this Pennybet, "if you'd stuck by Rupert and defied the
prefects."

"My dear Gray Doe," this statesman expounded, "I go in for nothing
that I can't win. And if you want to win, you must always make sure
that the adverse conditions are beatable. I like to tame
circumstances to my own ends (hear, hear), but if they aren't
tamable I let them alone. So now you know. But about these prefects.
They've got their cane ready, so push your shirt well down."

Doe studiously refused to hurry over his dressing, and, having
assumed his jacket, went to a mirror and took great pains with his
hair. At this moment, though the hand which held the brush trembled,
he was almost happy: for he was playing, I know, at being a French
Aristocrat going to the guillotine dressed like a gentleman.

"My time is valuable," hinted Penny. "Still, by all means let us be
spotless.... That's right. Now you look ripping. Come along, and
I'll stand you a drink when it's over."

For Penny, the callous opportunist, had a sort of patronising
tenderness for his two acolytes.

Doe followed his conductor in a silence which not only saved him
from betraying timidity by a trembling voice, but also suited the
dignity of a French Aristocrat. But no--at this point, I think, he
was a Christian martyr walking to the lions.

"Come, my lamb, to the slaughter-house," said Penny, in the best of
spirits, "and don't try that looking-defiant game, 'cos it won't
pay. They're not taking any to-day, thank you. That's their tone....
There's the door. Now remember not to say a word on your own behalf,
for with these bally prefects anything that you say will be taken
down in evidence against you.... Enter the prisoner, gentlemen.
Sorry to be so long, but we had to make ourselves presentable.
Anything else in the same line to-day?"

Penny paused for breath, but showed no desire to leave the Prefects'
Room. He wanted to see at least the commencement of judicial
proceedings. They looked so promising. All the Bramhall prefects
were there--Bickerton, Kepple-Goddard, and the prosecuting counsel,
Banana-Skin; and Stanley--Stanley by the grace of God.

"Bring the boy Doe in," ordered Stanley, "and kick that gas-bag
Pennybet out. If he were a year younger we'd whack him too."

No one thought himself specifically addressed, and Penny was left in
possession of the floor. But Stanley's curt treatment rankled in his
heart. So, placing his feet wide apart and his hands in his
waistcoat pockets, he respectfully drew attention to the opprobrious
epithet "gas-bag" which had been employed in requesting him to
retire from this Chamber of Horrors, and asked that the offensive
remark might be withdrawn.

Stanley scorned communication with an impertinent junior. He
telegraphed a glance to Bickerton.

"Turf him out, Bicky."

But Penny, perceiving that rough treatment would ensue, gracefully
removed himself from the room, so timing his motions that he closed
the door from outside just as Bickerton from within arrived at the
handle. Bickerton, defeated, swung round upon the assembly and
asked if he should follow the fugitive.

"That kid's too smart to live," said Stanley, more generous than his
peers. "Let him be. He'd best you and a good many more of us.
Besides, it's nearly tea-time, and we've got to get this Doe
business over."

Bickerton accordingly took up his place on the fender and considered
himself empanelled upon the jury. Doe stood with his hands behind
his back, his cheeks very flushed, and his knees slightly shivering,
but upheld by the thought of his resemblance to Charles I. He would
scorn to plead before this unjust tribunal.

"Now, Edgar Doe," began Stanley, and his voice was the signal for
silence in the court and for all eyes to be concentrated on the
prisoner. "You've made a little fool of yourself. You've openly set
us all at defiance and, no doubt, thought yourself mighty clever. I
don't think you'd have been so ready to do it if we hadn't been
decent and had you in here sometimes. But that's beside the point,
only I may say in passing that we shan't have you here any more."

"I don't care," said Doe. "I don't want to come, and I wouldn't come
if you asked me."

"Yes, we all know that. It was the obvious thing to say, Mr. Edgar
Gray Doe. Now we aren't bullies, and perhaps, had you comforted your
friend on the Q.T., and been copped doing so, we'd have let you off.
But it's the beastly blatancy of it all that constitutes the gravity
of your offence and detracts from its value as a self-denying act of
friendship. Do I express myself clearly?" concluded Stanley, turning
to his colleagues.

"Perfectly," said Kepple-Goddard.

"Well, Doe, did you grasp the drift of all I said?"

"I wasn't listening."

Stanley, nonplussed, looked round upon the jury. Banana-Skin
muttered: "The little devil!" Bickerton from the fender sighed:
"_St. St._ Ah, me! to think how we've swept and garnished the Gray
Doe! 'I never loved a dear gazelle, But what it turned and stung me
well.'"

"Dry up, Bicky," came the president's rebuke, "and go and turn away
those kids who are making a row with their feet in the corridor.
Remain on guard out there, if you don't mind. It's behaviour like
Doe's that makes these kids so uppish. Thanks, Bicky."

There was a sound of scurrying feet and repressed impish laughter,
as Bickerton opened the door and shut it behind him.

"Now, Doe," resumed Stanley, "what have you to say for yourself
before we leave the talking and get to business?"

"Nothing," replied Doe, "except that I'll go on being pally with Ray
whatever you do, you--you set of cads!"

"I say"--Stanley was keeping his temper--"don't play the persecuted
hero defying the world. It won't wash here."

"I'm not playing the persecuted hero," retorted Doe loudly, but with
drowned eyes. "I didn't think myself mighty clever--I--"

"I thought you hadn't been listening," put in Banana-Skin in a quiet
and torturing way.

"And I thought you'd nothing to say for yourself," added another.

"Steady, Banana," remonstrated Stanley, "don't tease the kid."

"They're not teasing me. I don't care what they say or what any of
you do."

"What a little liar it is!" taunted Banana-Skin, "when he's fairly
blubbing there."

"I'm not!"

"Fetch the cane out," pursued Banana-Skin, unheeding. "It's no good
talking. Get him over that chair, Kepple."

"You shan't!" said Doe, trembling terribly.

"By jove!" cried Stanley, jumping up. "He's going to show fight, is
he? Pass over that cane. Now, bend over that chair, youngster."

"I won't."

"Look here, you unutterable fool. Here's the cane. See it? If you do
what you're told you'll get a stiff whacking, but if you don't, by
God, there's no saying what you'll get."

Doe sprang forward, seized the cane, smashed it, and hurled the
pieces into their midst. "Now then, you cads, you can't lick me, you
brutes, you fools! Come for me--you lot of great devils!" He roared
this at them, and the last words were shouted in a burst of
hysterical crying. With head down he charged into Stanley, crashing
his fist on the senior prefect's chin.

The outraged prefects lost their heads. They surrounded him as he
fought. Above the turmoil came the cries: "Get hold of the little
devil!" "Pin his hands to his sides!" "He shan't forget this!" "Trip
him up, if you can't do anything else!" "It's not pluck, it's
temper!" "He's down--he's up again!" "By jove, the little blackguard
is going to beat the lot of you!" "Get him on the ground--don't be
afraid to go for him--he's asked for it." "That's right--got his
wrist? Twist it!" "Devil take it, he's wrenched it free again." "Get
out of the light--I'll settle him!" "I've got him--no, by God, I
haven't!"

Stanley, the first to recover himself, fell away from the rest.

"Come away, you fools. There are ten of you. Leave him alone."

"Can't help it!" yelled back Banana-Skin. "It's his fault. Let him
have it. That's right. Get him against the wall."

"Come away, you fools!" And Stanley began to pull them off and fling
them away furiously. Banana-Skin had a shock when he found himself
seized and hurled against the opposite wall.

It had been well had Stanley done this earlier, for Doe, turning
very white, fell forwards.

"Heaven save us!" exclaimed Stanley, as white as Doe. "We've done it
now. What brutes we are! Lock the door. He's fainted. By heaven, I
wish this had never happened!"

Doe had not fainted. He was in a state of semi-unconsciousness when
he knew where he was, but it was a long way off--when he heard all
that was said, but it came from a great distance--when neither his
position nor the sound of voices was of any interest to him, and his
only desire was to pass into complete unconsciousness, which would
bring rest and sleep. He felt them catch hold of him, one by the
armpits and another by the ankles, and knew that he was being lifted
on to a table.

Then the voices began from the top of a great well, while he lay at
the bottom. He could hear what they said; but why would they persist
in talking and keeping him awake? He was indifferent to them: they
were like voices in a railway carriage to a dozing traveller.

"I wouldn't have thought he had so much in him."

"Oughtn't we to undo his collar?"

Then the remarks evaporated into nonsense, but only for a space,
after which the nonsense solidified into sentences again.

"Don't you think we ought to send for Chappy?"

"Wait and see if he'll come round. His colour's returning."

Doe was ascending from the bottom of his great well: the voices were
becoming distincter, a pain in his head and body worse.

"Yes, he's less white. Sprinkle water over his forehead."

Doe was coming up and must have reached the top, for it was raining.
How silly! That wasn't rain, but the water being sprinkled over his
forehead. How hard the top of the well was! But there--he was
nowhere near a well, but in the Prefects' Room, lying on a deal
table. Or was he at the bottom of the sea?

"He's looking better now."

Up he came from the bottom of the ocean. Above him he could see the
surface, a broad expanse of pale green, through which the sun was
trying to shine and succeeding better every second. Though all the
while conscious that his eyes were closed, he saw dancing on the
green rippling veil, beneath which he lay, little spots of colour
that grew in number till they became a dazzling kaleidoscope.

"Doe, are you all right now?"

The kaleidoscope was gone; and the top of the sea was above him,
getting steadily closer and brighter. Good--he was above the surface
now, and the water seemed out of his ears, so that he heard with
perfect clearness the voice of Stanley saying:

"That's right--you're round again."

Though his eyes were still shut he felt he must be awake, because
the Prefects' Room with its furniture had crowded his mental vision.
So he opened his eyes, and there, sure enough, were the prefects'
chairs and cupboards; they seemed, however, to have moved with a
jump from the positions they had occupied in his mental picture.

If you wake and see faces looking down on you, the natural thing to
do is to smile round upon them all; and this Doe did, so that his
persecutors were touched, and Stanley said:

"How are you feeling now, kid? We're all of us beastly sorry."

"And I'm beastly sorry if I cheeked you."

"Well, never mind about that; but tell us if you're feeling putrid,
because then we'll tell old Dr. Chapman and make a clean breast of
it. My colleagues and I are determined to do the right thing."

"Oh, I'm all right. Don't say anything to anyone."

Ding-ding-ding!

"Are you fit for walking in to tea?" asked Stanley.

"Rather! I'm quite the thing now. Thanks awfully."

So Doe, sustained by a pride in his determination to conceal what
had happened and screen the prefects, walked with racking head and
aching limbs into tea, where he made a show of eating and drinking,
though periodically the room went spinning round him.

Tea over, he staggered into the Preparation room and sat at his desk
with his brows on his hand and his eyes on his book. The print
danced before his gaze: letter rushed into letter, word merged
mistily into word, line into line, till all was a grey blur. A blink
of the eyes--an effort of the will--a sort of "squad, shun!" to the
type before him--and the words jumped back into their places,
letters separated from their entanglement and stood like soldiers at
spruce attention. A relaxing of the effort--and dismiss!
helter-skelter, pell-mell went letter, word, and line. It was all a
blur again. Once more he made the necessary exercise of his will and
was able to read a line or two; but, if the mistiness were not to
come before his eyes, the effort had to be sustained, and that made
his head feel very heavy. It proved too much for him; the will to do
it expired, and away went the letters into the fog. Some boys
whispered that he was sighing for his friend Ray; others teased him
by muttering: "Diddums get whacked by the prefects? Diddums get a
leathering?"

Poor Doe! He must have been strongly tempted to retort: "I wasn't
whacked, so sucks!" and to describe that picturesque incident when
he smashed the prefects' cane, for his milk was the praise of men.
But he had to choose whether, by a little honourable bragging, he
should gratify his desire for glory, or by a martyr's silence he
should give himself the satisfaction of playing a fine hero. The
latter was the stronger motive. He kept silence, and only hoped that
his valorous deeds would leak out.

Preparation was nearly over when there came one of those
heart-stopping crashes which all who hear know to be the total
collapse of a human being. A faint--aye, and a faint in the first
degree, when life goes out like a candle.

"Who's that? What's that?" cried the master-in-charge, quickly
rising.

"It's Doe, sir. He's fainted."

"Oh, ah, I see," said he, leaving his desk and hastening to the
spot. "Sit down, all of you. There's nothing very extraordinary in a
boy fainting. Here, Stanley, pick him up and take him to the
sick-room; and, Bickerton, go with him. The rest of you get on with
your work."


Thereafter Pennybet--or, at least, so he assured us--expended his
spare time in knocking his head against walls and holding his breath
in the hope that he, too, might faint and have a restful holiday in
the sick-room.

"For," said he, "where Doe and Ray are, there should Me be also."


§5

"It's funny that we do everything together," said Doe that same
evening, as we lay in our beds and watched each other's eyes in the
light of the turned-down gas. "First we're twins; then we get
whacked together; then we both get rowed by prefects; and I do a
faint and you do a sort of fit.... But, I say, Rupert, look here; I
want to ask you something: will people think I was a fool in
everything I did, or will they think--well, the other thing? I mean,
let's put it like this--what would Radley think?"

"I don't know," said I, not very helpfully.

"I s'pose he's heard all about it. I hope he has--at least, I mean,
I'd like him to think I stuck by you. Only, when the prefects were
talking about defiance, it struck me that Radley might call it
'insubordination.'"

There was a pause, and then he proceeded: "I wonder if he'll be
sorry when he hears we are both laid up."

"Who?"

"Why, Radley, of course."

"_Mr._ Radley," said a voice, "if you please."

Radley, who had walked softly lest the invalids should be wakened
from sleep, was standing in the room and looking at us in the
glimmer. We were very surprised, and Doe's blushes at being caught
were only exceeded by the pleasure-sparkling of his eyes.

Radley approached my bed and placed the clothes carefully over my
chest. I didn't know whether to thank him for this, and only smiled
and reddened. And after he had done the same for Doe he sat at the
foot of his bed.

"When the world turns against you, always go sick," said he,
smiling. "It's an excellent rule for changing ill-will to sympathy.
If you're sent to Coventry, go straight to bed there. Oh, you're a
subtle pair, aren't you?"

We were both too shy to answer.

"Well, Ray, I've come to tell you to sleep with an easy mind. The
Head Master is satisfied that, if you were conducting operations in
Mr. Fillet's room, you were not conscious of it. It was Dr. Chapman
who worked all this for you. He threatened to go on strike if any
other conclusion were come to. He asked the Head whether he'd ever
dreamt he was doing most impossible things. The Head said 'Yes,' and
the doctor replied triumphantly: 'Well, don't let your brain get as
excited as a child's, or, maybe, if you're feverish and run down,
you'll go and do them.' He even suggested that possibly it was not
you but the Head who had committed the crime. He asked him if he
could imagine 'a silly and excitable kid' (which is an excellent
description of Ray) dreaming that he had done what actually was
done.... The Head was incredulous at first, but the doctor talked so
learnedly about the Subliminal Consciousness and Alternating
Personalities that the Head, if only for fear of getting out of his
depth, began to yield. I drove home the advantage by saying that I
believed you didn't generally lie--which was true, wasn't it?"

"Good Lord, no!" I replied.

"Well, it will be some day." Radley rose and strolled to the door.
"Yes, there's been a slump in Rupert Ray recently, but I'm afraid
there'll be a boom in him when he comes back to work, and he'll get
too big for his boots. It's a pity. Good-night."

And though Stanley, as we learnt later, had manfully revealed the
full story of Doe's sufferings at the hands of the prefects, Radley
walked away without giving the young hero one word of admiration.
And as the door shut Doe turned round in his bed, so that his face
was away from me, and maintained a wonderful silence.




CHAPTER V

CHEATING


§1

Time carried us a year nearer the shadow of the Great War. It
brought us to our fourteenth year, at which period Doe's mysterious
intrigue with Freedham still awaited solution, and my Armageddon
with Fillet still languished in a sort of trench-warfare.

It was now that our abominable form took to cheating once a week in
Fillet's class-room. A Roman History lesson left invitingly open the
opportunity to do so. For Fillet's method of examining our
acquaintance with the chapter he had set to be learnt in Preparation
was invariably the same. He asked twenty questions, whose answers we
had to write on paper. He would then tell us the answers and allow
us to correct our own work. After this he would take down our marks.

Now, our form had been organised by the all-powerful statesman,
Pennybet, who had lately been reading the Progressive Papers, into a
Trade Union, of which the President was Mr. Archibald Pennybet. He
had decided (as it is the business of all trade unions to decide)
that we were worked too hard. We must organise to effect an
improvement in the conditions of living. To demand from the Head
Master an instant reduction in the hours of labour didn't seem
feasible to our union of twenty members, but it would be quite easy
by a co-operative effort to modify the extent of our Preparation. At
a mass-meeting of the workers Penny outlined his scheme--Penny loved
scheming, moving forces, and holding their reins.

It was a marvellous scheme. We were to leave undone our Preparation
for the Roman History lesson, and, when Fillet told us the answers,
we were to write them down and credit ourselves with the marks.
"It's not cheating," explained our leader in his speech (and we
were all very glad, I think, to hear that it wasn't cheating),
"because it's not an effort to take an unfair advantage of each
other. It's just a cordial understanding, by which we all lessen one
another's burdens.

"I and my executive," continued Penny, "have all the details worked
out to a nicety. Here is a table for the whole term, showing how
many marks each worker will give up week by week. It is so graduated
that the clever fellows will end up at the top, and those who would
naturally slack will end up at the bottom. My executive has decided
that Doe is about the brainiest, so he comes out first"--blushes
from Doe--"and I myself am willing to stand at the bottom."

By this revelation of astonishing magnanimity Penny came out of the
transaction, as he did out of most things that he put his hand to,
with nothing but credit.

For half a term this comfortable scheme ran as merrily as a stream
down hill. And then a strange thing happened to me. I was talking
one afternoon to Penny on the absurdities of the Solar System, when
I became conscious that my mind had closed upon seven words: "That
Rupert, the best of the lot."

"That Rupert, the best of the lot." What on earth had resuscitated
those words? I politely bowed them out and continued my
conversation. But the phrase had entered like a bailiff into
possession of my mind. Even as I put it from me, believing it would
be lost in the flow of an absorbing conversation, I knew that there
had appeared upon the horizon a cloud no bigger than a man's hand.

"That Rupert, the best of the lot." The words, as first told to me
by my mother, had been the dying words of my grandfather, Colonel
Rupert Ray, with which he asked repeatedly for his dead son, my
father. So the words were uttered by the first Rupert Ray, applied
to the second, and recalled by the third at a most inopportune
moment. And the third would have bowed them out. Why? Because he was
a cheat? No--let us not be ridiculous--because he was in the midst
of an important conversation.

I pretended to listen to Penny, but really I was reasoning something
else. I was admitting that, now that this little phrase had popped
up through some trap-door of my mind, my conscience, long dormant on
the cheating theme, would have to be talked round again. And, as
something like suspense set in, I was anxious to join issue at once.

I left Penny abruptly and retired to a window (as you will have
observed it was my fashion to do), where I leant upon the sill and
prepared to argue out the problem.

Our co-operative effort to avoid preparing our lesson, was it wrong?
Yes. In spite of the old sophistry I knew it to be so. But what
attitude should one adopt? To refuse publicly to have any part in
the system would seem like mock-heroics. The only course open was to
learn the work and earn the marks. Inevitably I had arrived at the
conclusion which I dreaded. To learn the work seemed a task
surprisingly difficult and menacing after half-a-term's freedom. I
hugged that freedom. I wished my calm acquiescence in the system had
not been ruffled.

To learn the work--it was a little thing surely: to learn it unseen
and alone, while other boys went free of the labour, and gave
themselves the marks, notwithstanding. But no, I could no more
persuade myself that it was a little thing than I could believe that
any other course was the right one. I felt it was big--too big for
_me_.

Then the old thought, probably not an hour younger than sin itself,
was quick to take advantage of my indecision: I would go on as I was
a little while longer--till the end of the term--and then begin with
a clean sheet. There was much to be said in favour of this: for see,
if I were to do the thing thoroughly this term, I ought to forgo all
the marks that I had already come by dishonestly. To do that was
impossible. The confession involved would court expulsion.
Expulsion! As the word occurred to me, I realised the enormity of my
offence. How could I go on with that which, if detected, would mean
expulsion? To answer this question I went the whole dreary round of
reasoning once more and arrived at the conviction that the straight
action was incumbent upon me; which conviction I hastened to explain
away with the same dull casuistry. Sick and weary, I left the
window-sill and ceased to think any more. My conscience had given
battle to evil and neither lost nor won. Indecisive as the issue
was, I knew in my heart of hearts that it partook of the nature of a
defeat.

Later on, I wrote to my mother quite an effective analysis of this
spiritual difficulty: and I wrote it, so she loves to say, on a
postcard, and signed it "yours truly, Rupert Ray." Her reply I could
not expect till Wednesday morning, the morning of the lesson. Of
that I was glad. For to this extent I had temporised: I would wait
till I heard from her before attempting to learn the work. If
necessary, I could cram it up on Wednesday morning. And with this
settlement I was satisfied in a sickly way.


§2

While Tuesday is passing in silence and inaction, and the issue of
this crisis is in the bag of the postman, let me tell you something
of my relations with my mother. Her love for me, I have said, was of
the extravagant kind. It was ever and actively present. Though she
discharged her social duties with a peculiar grace, yet I am certain
that the thought she bestowed on them was an intruder amongst her
thoughts of me. My figure was present to her in the drawing-room,
the ball-room, or the theatre.

I fear I was not demonstrative in my affection for her. Perhaps,
when we sat alone at dinner on holiday evenings, and her dress was
one that left her arms bare, I would think that the softness of the
limbs was such as to make one wish to touch them; and I would stroke
them; or, when she laid her hand upon the table, I would rest my own
hot palm upon it. But I am certain that it was not till our stories
marched into the shadow of the Great War that I became at all
demonstrative.

Enough of that, then--the postman's feet are on the steps of
Bramhall House. May I just ask you to think of my mother as a very
gracious lady, gracious in form and feature and character?


§3

When breakfast was over on Wednesday morning, I repaired to the
Steward's Room, where letters had to be sought. I was attacked by a
feverish nervousness, which increased as I passed other boys
returning with letters in their hands. Anxiety seemed to be a
physical thing deflating my breast and loins. My heart, too, was
affected when I asked the Steward with feigned unconcern if there
were any letters for Ray. It beat rapidly as I awaited the reply.

None. I was stupefied: but soon stupefaction became anger; anger
hardened into sulkiness; and, as more sinister feelings grew,
sulkiness lost itself in guilty belief. Now I knew what course I
would take--I would go on cheating.

I turned to go out. Since that afternoon when the choice between
good and evil came so plainly before me, I had been dilly-dallying
at the spot where the two ways met. The more I hesitated, the
greater had become the desire to take the easier road. And now in
open rebellion against my scruples I stepped firmly upon it. My
reasoning was played out, and, as I walked back along the corridor,
I felt like one released from irksome fetters. Oh, it was good to be
free! At the same time, however, with the obstinacy of one who seeks
to justify himself, I muttered: "She might have written, I think,
she might have written."

Then a step sounded behind me, a hand touched my shoulder, so that
my heart jumped like a startled frog, and Radley said:

"Come and have a talk with me a minute."


§4

My mother had written, but not to her son. The postman, who
disappointed me, brought a graceful note to Radley:

     "I am most sorry for this trespass upon your time, and yet I
     have little hesitation in asking your help in a matter that
     concerns my son. Rupert, in his talks during the holidays, so
     often mentions your name, that it is not difficult to see that
     he owes you a good deal. Although he is too reserved to say so,
     I fancy he is quite devoted to you. His postcard, which I
     enclose, will explain all.

     "May I take this opportunity of expressing my thanks, and of
     saying how grateful his father would have been for all that you
     are doing for our son?"

Radley, when we reached the privacy of his room, took up his
favourite position of sitting on the edge of the table. Before him
stood I, all reasoning suspended.

"Well, how's the cheating going on?" he asked.

"What ch--?"

"Stop! Don't say 'What cheating?' because that would be acting a
lie. I tell you what we'll do. We'll wait a whole minute before you
answer me. We'll collect our thoughts and think whether we'll act
straightly or crookedly." He took his watch off his chain and placed
it upon the table beside him. "Right, we're off."

As the seconds sped by I tried to find some excuses. But, bewildered
and sick, I could only wonder how he came to know of it all. I had
found no answer when I saw him replacing his watch on his chain.

"Well, Ray, how's the cheating going on?"

"I didn't think it exactly cheating."

"Ray, don't." Radley protruded and withdrew his lower jaw with
irritation. "You know it was cheating. If you didn't, why did you
know what I was referring to? Well, we'll have another sixty
seconds' interval. We must have time to think, or else we lie."

Out came the watch again. The pantomime of waiting in silence and of
replacing the watch was re-enacted. Then Radley, half smiling, as if
he knew the worst was over, took up his question once more.

"Well, how's the cheating going on?"

Since I was not allowed to prevaricate, all that remained for me to
do was to return no reply. But there was stubbornness in my silence;
I should have liked to say pettishly: "But you won't let me explain,
you won't let me explain."

And then--quickly--Radley grasped me by the elbow and looked
straight down at me. For a second I resisted and tried to pull the
elbow away. His grip, however, was too strong, and I yielded.

I know now that his feeling for all the boys, as he gazed down upon
them from his splendid height, was love--a strong, active love. We
were young, human things, of soft features gradually becoming firmer
as of shallow characters gradually deepening. And he longed to be in
it all--at work in the deepening. We were his hobby. I have met
many such lovers of youth. Indeed, I think this is a book about
them.

And, as I am certain of his feelings for us all, so am I certain of
his feelings for myself. Those who were most pliant to his touch
loomed, of course, largest in his thoughts: and my mother's letter,
giving him the proof of my affection, which, since it was less
obtrusive than Doe's, had been probably less clear to him, brought
me in the foreground of his view. Be it right or wrong, this man
with the hard chin and kind eyes had his favourites; and I date from
this moment my usurping of Doe's position as Radley's foremost
favourite. The way in which he took hold of my elbow, my willing
submission of the army to his grasp told me that something was given
by him and taken by me. And my eyes, as was to be expected of them,
became suddenly moist and luminous.

"Time's going," he said, "and this Roman History lesson is upon us.
Have you learnt it?"

"No, sir."

"Well, the issue is simple: either you continue cheating, or you
give up no marks. Shall you cheat any more?"

"N-no, sir."

"Good, then you give up no marks."

"All right, sir."

"Well, hurry away. And if, when the big moment comes, you succeed in
doing what's right, come and see me again."


§5

The big moment came. Fillet opened his mark-book and read the names
in the order of last term's examination-list, which brought Doe's
name first. Doe was mending a nib when his name was called, and,
without raising his head, replied "100, sir."

Other names followed, and the boys gave up the marks allotted them
by Penny's system. Then came mine.

"Ray?"

For a second my voice or will failed me, so I pretended I had not
heard, and let him ask again.

"Ray?"

"_None, sir._"

Every boy turned towards me, and my cheeks burned to maroon. I
caught mutters of "Well, I'm hanged!" "Ye gods!" "Good-night!"

"Wh-what did you say?" stuttered Carpet Slippers.

I was irritated and nervous and replied rather too loudly:

"_None, sir._"

"None? Why none?"

"I didn't learn it."

The mutterings began again: "Oh, I say, stow it!" "Lie down."

"You didn't learn it? St-stand up when I question you. Wh-why didn't
you learn it?"

Here I failed. I had answered the first two questions truthfully
because I had reasoned about them. The third took me unawares. And,
such is the result of trifling with conscience, I had lost the knack
of doing right without premeditation. "We must have time to think,"
Radley had said bitterly, "or else we lie." Obliged to answer
without delay, I lied.

"I hadn't time, sir."

No sooner had I uttered the words than the dull and sickening sense
of failure came over me. In spite of all--in spite of the fact that
I had dealt honourably with the first two questions--I had ended by
lying. I sat down slowly, and stared vacantly in front of me. The
big moment had come and passed, and I had missed it. I couldn't
believe it. I had been determined, and yet I had failed. My breath
became tremulous, and across my brows went the sudden invasion of a
headache.

Little it matters what Fillet said. Destiny ordains for our
correction that there shall be some people before whom we shall
always appear at our worst. Fillet occupied that place in my
schooldays.

Little would it matter, either, what my fellow trade-unionists
thought of this black-leg in the camp, were it not for the
remarkable deed of Pennybet. He, I am convinced, felt that he must
rise to the occasion. There were few things he liked better than
rising to an occasion. Here was an opportunity for a _coup d'état_.
Here, praise the gods, were circumstances to be tamed. So he at once
threw all his weight on my side, knowing full well that he had but
to do that to secure me from all persecution or contempt.

"P-pennybet?"

"Oh--er--none, sir."

"None? Another boy with none? Why none?"

Penny admired the nails on his right hand and then said:

"I didn't exactly learn it."

"Oh, indeed? And wh-why, pray?"

As though deploring such tactless persistency, Penny pursed up his
mouth, laid his head on one side, shrugged his shoulders, and held
his peace.

"Had you, too, no time?"

"Well, not a great deal, sir."

There were some titters, and Penny looked deprecatingly in the
direction whence they came. Fillet passed judgment so severe that
Penny made a shocking grimace and said: "Thank you, sir. It shall
not occur again," which, to be sure, might have meant anything.

I think the characters of both my friends stood out, clearly
defined, in the words with which they referred to this incident
afterwards. Doe was generous in his praise. "Golly," he said, "I
wish I could feel I had done it as you can now. I cursed my luck
that my name didn't come after yours, so that I could have stood by
you, as Penny did. I could have throttled him with jealousy. Do you
know, I almost wished the other boys had mobbed you a bit, so that I
could have stuck by you." And Penny said: "You didn't really think I
was going to throw the weight of my trade union on to the side of
that foul, caitiff knave of a Carpet Slippers? Why, the man's a low
fellow--the sort of person one simply doesn't know. He'd drink his
own bath-water."


§6

"If you succeed in doing what is right, come and see me again." I
decided to stay away. Many times that morning I passed Radley in the
school buildings, and, pretending not to have seen him, went by with
a hum or a whistle. In the afternoon he came and coached our game at
cricket; and after tea he bowled at the Bramhall Nets where I was
practising. When he instructed me he spoke as though there were
nothing between us. But he was watching me, I knew; wondering why I
had not come, and longing for me: and I rather overplayed my part.

It had been a grey, dull day, but, just before retiring, the sun
came out and shamed the clouds into a sullen withdrawal. Then it
went under, leaving behind it a glorious red glow and the hope of
better things in the morning. All this I was in the mood to notice,
for, though trying to be indifferent to destiny, I was heavy and
dispirited. I did not see how I could ever do right again, since
Radley's determination and my own had been insufficient to brace me
for the onslaught. It was evident that mine was the stuff from which
criminals were made.

And, as the red glow departed and the darkness gathered, if there
was one lonely boy in the world, languidly despairing, it was I.
Many times I found myself uttering aloud such slang expressions as:
"Oh, my hat! If only I had told the beastly truth for the third
time! Dash it, why didn't I? Why the deuce didn't I?" I addressed
myself as: "You blithering, blithering fool!" And my temples began
to ache and now and then to hammer. For, always in these my early
days of puberty, excitement and worry produced such immediate
sensuous results.

Radley sent for me at last, and it was a relief to go. He was very
kind. Frankly, I believe he was pleased to have his new favourite in
his room again. I was indeed his hobby at present.

"Have I ever bullied you at the nets," he said, "for stepping back
to a straight ball?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, the universal habit of 'stepping back' is exactly parallel to
that of arguing with conscience. The habit grows; one's wicket
always falls after a few straight balls; and one's batting goes from
bad to worse. Never mind, you stood up splendidly to the first two
straight balls and scored boundaries off both. That shows you are
getting into your old form. You are out of practice a bit, that's
all."

And I went out of his room, feeling sure that for some time I would
be very good.


§7

I always left Radley's room, feeling that I could blast a way
through every mountain. And it was not long after he had received my
mother's letter with its allusion to my lack of a father, that he
addressed himself to a bigger mountain than any of these little
trumpery hills that you have watched me conquering. He invited me to
his room one evening, and sat me in an armchair opposite him: and
then he talked, while I watched the fire getting redder, as the room
grew darker. Soon he came unhesitatingly to a subject that I was
just at an age to understand. He spoke so fearlessly as to be quite
unrestrained and natural. Nevertheless, I was glad that the room was
getting darker, as I felt that my cheeks were red and hot. And when
he said: "You mustn't mind my talking to you like this," I could
only reply: "Oh, it's all right, sir."

But, once again, I left his room feeling that, though already I had
had my reverses in the moral contest of which he spoke, I would win
through in the end.




CHAPTER VI

AN INTERLUDE


In the summer holidays of that year I received a letter from Doe
inviting me to spend a few days with him at his Cornish home on the
Fal. Radley, he told me, was already his guest.

There was some excitement the morning I left home for this adventure
into the West Country. My mother had clothed me in a new dark-blue
suit. Her son must look his best, she said. She insisted on my
wearing a light-blue tie, for "it matched the colour of my eyes." I
rather opposed this on the ground that it was "all dashed silly."
But she disarmed me by pointing out that I was _her_ doll and not my
own, and the only one she had had since she was my age, which was a
century ago--a terrible lie, as she looked about twenty-seven. She
carried her point with a kiss, called me her Benjamin, tied the tie
very gingerly, and subsequently disarranged it completely by hugging
me to say good-bye, as though I were off for a lifetime.

Alone in my corner seat I was rolled over the Trail of Beauty that
the line of the Great Western follows. And I watched the telegraph
wires switchbacking from post to post, as we sped along.

When we steamed into Falmouth station, I easily distinguished
Radley's majestic figure standing on the platform, with Doe actually
hanging on his arm--a thing I would never have dared to do. In fact,
I guessed that Doe was doing it for my benefit. Our young host was
in a light grey suit that would have brought tears to the eyes of
Kensingtowe's administrators, who stipulate for dark garments only:
and, evidently, he had been allowed to dictate to his tailor, for
the suit was an exact copy of one that Radley had worn during the
previous term. He looked more than ever like his nickname, "the Gray
Doe."

Next morning the sun blazed out over England's loveliest stream,
the Fal, as, widening, it flowed seaward. We hurried down to the
foot of Doe's garden, where a rustic boat-house sheltered his
private vessel, the _Lady Fal_. Doe stepped into its stern, and I
into its bows, and Radley took the oars. With a few masterly
manoeuvres he turned the boat into midstream, and then pulled a
rapid and powerful stroke towards Tresillian Creek, where we had
decided to bathe. We touched the bank at a suitable landing-place,
disembarked, and prepared to undress.

The events of this day linger with me like a string of jewels; and
the bathe was one of the brightest of them all. There was a race
between Doe and myself to be first in the water. As I tossed off my
clothes, the excitement of anticipation was inflating me. I would
surprise them with my swimming.

My mother had taught me to swim. We began our studies in the bath,
when I was still a baby, she leaning over the side and directing my
splashing limbs. We achieved the desired result some years later in
the French seas off Boulogne. She never could swim a stroke herself,
but was splendid in the book-work of the thing. Since those days she
had given me unlimited opportunities to acquire perfection. So now,
Radley and Doe, my masters, you should learn a thing or two!

The undressing race resulted in a dead-heat, but whereas Doe
contented himself with a humble jump into the stream, I contrived to
execute a racing dive. Glorious immersion! It was lovely, oh,
lovely! The embrace of the cool river seemed entrancing, and I
remained a fathom down, experiencing one continuous delight.
Unfortunately I was under water longer than my breath would hold
out, and came to the view of Radley and Doe, choking and spluttering
and splashing. Anxious to retrieve my reputation, for I was
detestably conceited about my art, I started off for a long, speedy
swim, displaying my best racing stroke. Back again, at an even
faster pace, I got entangled with Doe, who greeted me a little
jealously with: "Gracious! Where did you learn to swim like that?"
Radley's mouth was set, and he remained mercilessly silent. He
wasn't going to teach me conceit.

Soon we were clothed again, and back in the boat with untidy wet
hair and stinging eyes, but with the glow of health warming our
bodies.

Throughout the day we plied our craft over the Fal, lunching up
King Harry Reach, and taking tea not far from Truro. When we turned
the head of the _Lady Fa

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