The Hill: A Romance of Friendship
by Horace Annesley Vachell · English · Gutenberg #23154 · 456,377 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Hill: A Romance of Friendship
Author: Horace Annesley Vachell
Release date: October 23, 2007 [eBook #23154]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23154
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HILL: A ROMANCE OF FRIENDSHIP ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Stephen Blundell and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
_ALSO BY HORACE A. VACHELL_
QUINNEYS'
THE HILL
A ROMANCE OF FRIENDSHIP
HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
FIRST EDITION _April, 1905_
_Fortieth Impression_ _Jan., 1950_
Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Greek
text has been transliterated and is shown between {braces}.
To
GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL
I dedicate this Romance of Friendship to you with the sincerest pleasure
and affection. You were the first to suggest that I should write a book
about contemporary life at Harrow; you gave me the principal idea; you
have furnished me with notes innumerable; you have revised every page of
the manuscript; and you are a peculiarly keen Harrovian.
In making this public declaration of my obligations to you, I take the
opportunity of stating that the characters in "The Hill," whether
masters or boys, are not portraits, although they may be called,
truthfully enough, composite photographs; and that the episodes of
Drinking and Gambling are founded on isolated incidents, not on habitual
practices. Moreover, in attempting to reproduce the curious admixture of
"strenuousness and sentiment"--your own phrase--which animates so
vitally Harrow life, I have been obliged to select the less common types
of Harrovian. Only the elect are capable of such friendship as John
Verney entertained for Henry Desmond; and few boys, happily, are
possessed of such powers as Scaife is shown to exercise. But that there
are such boys as Verney and Scaife, nobody knows better than yourself.
Believe me,
Yours most gratefully,
HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
BEECHWOOD,
_February 22, 1905_
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE MANOR 1
II. CAESAR 19
III. KRAIPALE 35
IV. TORPIDS 58
V. FELLOWSHIP 70
VI. A REVELATION 92
VII. REFORM 107
VIII. VERNEY BOSCOBEL 123
IX. BLACK SPOTS 140
X. DECAPITATION 158
XI. SELF-QUESTIONING 173
XII. "LORD'S" 189
XIII. "IF I PERISH, I PERISH" 211
XIV. GOOD NIGHT 230
CHAPTER I
_The Manor_
"Five hundred faces, and all so strange!
Life in front of me--home behind,
I felt like a waif before the wind
Tossed on an ocean of shock and change.
"_Chorus._ Yet the time may come, as the years go by,
When your heart will thrill
At the thought of the Hill,
And the day that you came so strange and shy."
The train slid slowly out of Harrow station.
Five minutes before, a man and a boy had been walking up and down the
long platform. The boy wondered why the man, his uncle, was so strangely
silent. Then, suddenly, the elder John Verney had placed his hands upon
the shoulders of the younger John, looking down into eyes as grey and as
steady as his own.
"You'll find plenty of fellows abusing Harrow," he said quietly; "but
take it from me, that the fault lies not in Harrow, but in them. Such
boys, as a rule, do not come out of the top drawer. Don't look so
solemn. You're about to take a header into a big river. In it are rocks
and rapids; but you know how to swim, and after the first plunge you'll
enjoy it, as I did, amazingly."
"Ra--ther," said John.
In the New Forest, where John had spent most of his life at his uncle's
place of Verney Boscobel, this uncle, his dead father's only brother,
was worshipped as a hero. Indeed he filled so large a space in the boy's
imagination, that others were cramped for room. John Verney in India, in
Burmah, in Africa (he took continents in his stride), moved colossal.
And when uncle and nephew met, behold, the great traveller stood not
much taller than John himself! That first moment, the instant shattering
of a precious delusion, held anguish. But now, as the train whirled away
the silent, thin, little man, he began to expand again. John saw him
scaling heights, cutting a path through impenetrable forests, wading
across dismal swamps, an ever-moving figure, seeking the hitherto
unknowable and irreclaimable, introducing order where chaos reigned
supreme, a world-famous pioneer.
How good to think that John Verney was _his_ uncle, blood of his blood,
his, his, his--for all time!
And, long ago, John, senior, had come to Harrow; had felt what John,
junior, felt to the core--the dull, grinding wrench of separation, the
sense, not yet to be analysed by a boy, of standing alone upon the edge
of a river, indeed, into which he must plunge headlong in a few minutes.
Well, Uncle John had taken his "header" with a stout heart--who dared to
doubt that? Surely he had not waited, shivering and hesitating, at the
jumping-off place.
The train was now out of sight. John slipped the uncle's tip into his
purse, and walked out of the station and on to the road beyond, the road
which led to the top of the Hill.
_The Hill._
Presently, the boy reached some iron palings and a wicket-gate. His
uncle had pointed out this gate and the steep path beyond which led to
the top of the Hill, to the churchyard, to the Peachey tomb on which
Byron dreamed,[1] to the High Street--and to the Manor. It was pleasant
to remember that he was going to board at the Manor, with its
traditions, its triumphs, its record. In his uncle's day the Manor
ranked first among the boarding-houses. Not a doubt disturbed John's
conviction that it ranked first still.
The boy stared upwards with a keen gaze. Had the mother seen her son at
that moment, she might have discerned a subtle likeness between uncle
and nephew, not the likeness of the flesh, but of the spirit.
September rains, followed by a day of warm sunshine, had lured from the
earth a soft haze which obscured the big fields at the foot of the Hill.
John could make out fences, poplars, elms, Scotch firs, and spectral
houses. But, above, everything was clear. The school-buildings, such as
he could see, stood out boldly against a cloudless sky, and above these
soared the spire of Harrow Church, pointing an inexorable finger
upwards.
Afterwards this spot became dear to John Verney, because here, where
mists were chill and blinding, he had been impelled to leave the broad
high-road and take a path which led into a shadowy future. In obedience
to an impulse stronger than himself he had taken the short cut to what
awaited him.
For a few minutes he stood outside the palings, trying to choke down an
abominable lump in his throat. This was not his first visit to Harrow.
At the end of the previous term, he had ascended the Hill to pass the
entrance examination. A master from his preparatory school accompanied
him, an Etonian, who had stared rather superciliously--so John
thought--at buildings less venerable than those which Henry VI raised
near Windsor. John, who had perceptions, was elusively conscious that
his companion, too much of a gentleman to give his thoughts words, might
be contrasting a yeoman's work with a king's; and when the Etonian,
gazing across the plains below to where Windsor lay, a soft shadow upon
the horizon, said abruptly, "I wish Eton had been built upon a hill,"
John replied effusively: "Oh, sir, it _is_ decent of you to say that."
The examination, however, distracted his attention from all things save
the papers. To his delight he found these easy, and, as soon as he left
the examination-room, he was popped into a cab and taken back to town.
Coming down the flight of steps, he had seen a few boys hurrying up or
down the road. At these the Etonian cocked a twinkling eye.
"Queer kit you Harrow boys wear," he said.
John, inordinately grateful at this recognition of himself as an
Harrovian, forgave the gibe. It had struck him, also, that the shallow
straw hat, the swallow-tail coat, did look queer, but he regarded them
reverently as the uniform of a crack corps.
To-day, standing by the iron palings, John reviewed the events of the
last hour. The view was blurred by unshed tears. His uncle and he had
driven together to the Manor. Here, the explorer had exercised his
peculiar personal magnetism upon the house-master, a tall, burly man of
truculent aspect and speech. John realized proudly that his uncle was
the bigger of the two, and the giant acknowledged, perhaps grudgingly,
the dwarf's superiority. The talk, short enough, had wandered into
Darkest Africa. His uncle, as usual, said little, replying almost in
monosyllables to the questions of his host; but John junior told himself
exultantly that it was not necessary for Uncle John to talk; the wide
world knew what he had done.
Then his house-master, Rutford, had told John where to buy his first
straw hat.
"You can get one without an order at the beginning of each term," said
he, in a thick, rasping voice. "But you must ask me for an order if you
want a second."
Then he had shown John his room, to be shared with two other boys, and
had told him the hour of lock-up. And then, after tea, came the walk
down the hill, the tip, the firm grasp of the sinewy hand, and a
final--"God bless you."
Coming to the end of these reflections, confronted by the inexorable
future, and the necessity, no less inexorable, of stepping into it, John
passed through the gate. His heart fluttered furiously, and the lump in
the throat swelled inconveniently. John, however, had provided himself
with a "cure-all." Plunging his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a
cartridge, an unused twenty-bore gun cartridge. Looking at this, John
smiled. When he smiled he became good-looking. The face, too long,
plain, but full of sense and humour, rounded itself into the gracious
curves of youth; the serious grey eyes sparkled; the lips, too firmly
compressed, parted, revealing admirable teeth, small and squarely set;
into the cheeks, brown rather than pink, flowed a warm stream of colour.
The cartridge stood for so much. Only a week before, Uncle John, on his
arrival from Manchuria, had handed his nephew a small leather case and a
key. The case held a double-barrelled, hammerless, ejector, twenty-bore
gun, with a great name upon its polished blue barrels.
The sight of the cartridge justified John's expectations. He put it back
into his pocket, and strode forward and upward.
* * * * *
Close to the School Chapel, John remarked a curly-headed young gentleman
of wonderfully prepossessing appearance, from whom emanated an air, an
atmosphere, of genial enjoyment which diffused itself. The bricks of the
school-buildings seemed redder and warmer, as if they were basking in
this sunny smile. The youth was smiling now, smiling--at John. For
several hours John had been miserably aware that surprises awaited him,
but not smiles. He knew no Harrovians; at his school, a small one, his
fellows were labelled Winchester, Eton, Wellington; none, curiously
enough, Harrow. And already he had passed half a dozen boys, the
first-comers, some strangers, like himself, and in each face he had read
indifference. Not one had taken the trouble to say, "Hullo! Who are
you?" after the rough and ready fashion of the private school.
And now this smiling, fascinating person was actually about to address
him, and in the old familiar style----
"Hullo!"
"Hullo!"
"I met your governor the other day."
"Did you?" John replied. His father had died when John was seven.
Obviously, a blunder in identity had created this genial smile. John
wished that his father had not died.
"Yes," pursued the smiling one, "I met him--partridge-shooting at
home--and he asked me to be on the look-out for you. It's queer you
should turn up at once, isn't it?"
"Yes," said John.
"Your governor looked awfully fit."
"Did he?" Then John added solemnly, "My governor died when I was a kid."
The other gasped; then he threw back his curly head and laughed.
"I say, I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to laugh. If you're not
Hardacre, who are you?"
"Verney. I've just come."
"Verney? That's a great Harrow name. Are you any relation to the
explorer?"
"Nephew," said John, blushing.
"Ah--you ought to have been here last Speecher.[2] We cheered him, I can
tell you. And the song was sung: the one with his name in it."
"Yes," said John. Then he added nervously, "All the same, I don't know a
soul at Harrow."
Desmond smiled. The smile assured John that his name would secure him a
cordial welcome. Desmond added abruptly, "My name, Desmond, is a Harrow
name. My father, my grandfather, my uncles, and three brothers were
here. It does make a difference. What's your house?"
"The Manor," said John, proudly.
"Dirty Dick's!" Then, seeing consternation writ large upon John's face,
he added quickly, "We call _him_ Dirty Dick, you know; but the house
is--er--one of the oldest and biggest--er--houses." He continued
hurriedly: "I'm going into Damer's next term. Damer's is always
chock-a-block, you know."
"Why is Rutford called 'Dirty Dick'?" John asked nervously. "He doesn't
_look_ dirty."
"Oh, we've licked him into a sort of shape," said Desmond. "I _believe_
he toshes now--once a month or so."
"Toshes?"
"Tubs, you know. We call a tub a 'tosh.' When Dirty Dick came here he
was unclean. He told his form--oh! the cheek of it!--that in his filthy
mind one bath a week was plenty," unconsciously the boy mimicked the
thick, rasping tones--"two, luxury, and three--superfluity! After that
he was called Dirty Dick. There's another story. They say that years ago
he went to a Turkish bath, and after a rare good scraping the man who
was scraping him--nasty job that!--found something which Dirty Dick
recognized as a beastly flannel shirt he had lost when he was at the
'Varsity. But only the Fourth Form boys swallow _that_. Hullo! There's a
pal of mine. See you again."
He ran off gaily. John walked to the shop where straw hats were sold.
Here he met other new boys, who regarded him curiously, but said
nothing. John put on his hat, and gave Rutford's name to the young man
who waited on him. He had an absurd feeling that the young man would
say, "Oh yes--Dirty Dick's!" One very nice-looking pink-cheeked boy said
to another boy that he was at Damer's. John could have sworn that the
hatter's assistant regarded the pink youth with increased deference.
Why had Uncle John sent him to Dirty Dick's? He hurried out of the shop,
fuming. Then he remembered the hammerless gun. After all, the Manor had
been _the_ house once, and it might be _the_ house again.
By this time the boys were arriving. Groups were forming. Snatches of
chatter reached John's ears. "Yes, I shot a stag, a nine-pointer. My
governor is going to have it set up for me---- What? Walked up your
grouse with dogs! We drive ours---- I had some ripping cricket, made a
century in one match---- By Jove! Did you really?----"
John passed on. These were "bloods," tremendous swells, grown men with a
titillating flavour of the world about their distinguished persons.
A minute later he was staring disconsolately at a group of his fellows
just in front of Dir----of Rutford's side door. An impulse seized him to
turn and flee. What would Uncle John say to that? So he advanced. The
boys made way politely, asking no questions. As he passed through he
caught a few eager words. "I was hoping that the brute had gone. It _is_
a sickener, and no mistake!"
John ascended the battered, worn-out staircase, wondering who the
"brute" was. Perhaps a sort of Flashman. John knew his _Tom Brown_; but
some one had told him that bullying had ceased to be. Great emphasis had
been laid on the "brute," whoever he might be.
Upon the second-floor passage, he found his room and one of its tenants,
who nodded carelessly as John crossed the threshold.
"I'm Scaife," he said. "Are you the Lord, or the Commoner?" He laughed,
indicating a large portmanteau, labelled, "Lord Esme Kinloch."
"I'm Verney," said John.
"I've bagged the best bed," said Scaife, after a pause, "and I advise
you to bag the next best one, over there. It was mine last term."
"I don't see the beds," said John, staring about him.
Scaife pointed out what appeared to be three tall, narrow wardrobes. The
rest of the furniture included three much-battered washstands and chests
of drawers, four Windsor chairs, and a square table, covered with
innumerable inkstains and roughly-carved names.
"The beds let down," Scaife said, "and during the first school the maids
make them, and shut them up again. It is considered a joke to crawl into
another fellow's room at night, and shut him up. You find yourself
standing upon your head in the dark, choking. It is a joke--for the
other fellow."
"Did some one do that to you?" asked John.
"Yes; a big lout in the Third Fifth," Scaife smiled grimly.
"And what did you do?"
"I waited for him next day with a cricket stump. There was an awful row,
because I let him have it a bit too hard; but I've not been shut up
since. That bed is a beast. It collapses." He chuckled. "Young Kinloch
won't find it quite as soft as the ones at White Ladies. Well, like the
rest of us, he'll have to take Dirty Dick's as he finds it."
The bolt had fallen.
John asked in a quavering voice, "Then it _is_ called that?"
"Called what?"
"This house. Dirty Dick's!"
Scaife smiled cynically. He looked about a year older than John, but he
had the air and manners of a man of the world--so John thought. Also, he
was very good-looking, handsomer than Desmond, and in striking contrast
to that smiling, genial youth, being dark, almost swarthy of complexion,
with strongly-marked features and rather coarse hands and feet.
"Everybody here calls it Dirty Dick's," he replied curtly.
John stared helplessly.
"But," he muttered, "I heard, I was told, that the Manor was the best
house in the school."
"It used to be," Scaife answered. "To-day, it comes jolly near being the
worst. The fellows in other houses are decent; they don't rub it in;
but, between ourselves, the Manor has gone to pot ever since Dirty Dick
took hold of it. Damer's is the swell house now."
John began to unstrap his portmanteau. Scaife puzzled him. For instance,
he displayed no curiosity. He did not put the questions always asked at
a Preparatory School. Without turning his thought into words, John
divined that at Harrow it was bad form to ask questions. As he wanted to
ask a question, a very important question, this enforced silence became
exasperating.
Presently Scaife said, "I suppose you are one of the Claydon lot."
"No; my home is in the New Forest. My uncle is Verney of Verney
Boscobel."
"Oh! his name is on the panels at the head of the staircase; and it's
carved on a bed in the next room."
"Crikey! I must go and look at it."
"You can look at the panels, of course; but don't say 'Crikey!' and
don't go into the next room. Two Fifth Form fellows have it. It would be
infernal cheek."
John hoped that Scaife would offer to accompany him to the panels. Then
he went alone. It being now within half an hour of lock-up, the passages
were swarming with boys. Soon John would see them assembled in Hall,
where their names would be called over by Rutford. Everybody--John had
been told--was expected to be present at this first call-over, except a
few boys who might be coming from a distance. John worked his way along
the upper passage, and down the second flight of stairs till he came to
the first landing. Here, close to the house notice-board, were some oak
panels covered with names and dates, all carved--so John learned
later--by a famous Harrow character, Sam Hoare, once "Custos" of the
School. The boy glanced eagerly, ardently, up and down the panels. Ah,
yes, here was his father's name, and here--his uncle's. And then out of
the dull, finely-grained oak, shone other names familiar to all who love
the Hill and its traditions. John's heart grew warm again with pride in
the house that had held such men. The name of the great statesman and
below it a mighty warrior's made him thrill and tremble. They were _Old
Harrovians_, these fellows, men whom his uncle had known, men of whom
his dear mother, wise soul! had spoken a thousand times. The landing and
the passages were roaring with the life of the present moment. Boys, big
and small, were chaffing each other loudly. Under some circumstances,
this new-comer, a stranger, ignored entirely, might have felt desolate
and forlorn in the heart of such a crowd; but John was tingling with
delight and pleasure.
Suddenly, the noise moderated. John, looking up, saw a big fellow slowly
approaching, exchanging greetings with everybody. John turned to a boy
close to him.
"Who is it?" he whispered.
The other boy answered curtly, "Lawrence, the Head of the House."
The big fellow suddenly caught John's eyes. What he read
there--admiration, respect, envy--brought a slight smile to his lips.
"Your name?" he demanded.
"Verney."
Lawrence held out his hand, simply and yet with a certain dignity.
"I heard you were coming," he said, keenly examining John's face. "We
can't have too many Verneys. If I can do anything for you, let me know."
He nodded, and strode on. John saw that several boys were staring with a
new interest. None, however, spoke to him; and he returned to his room
with a blushing face. Scaife had unpacked his clothes and put them away;
he was now surveying the bare walls with undisguised contempt.
"Isn't this a beastly hole?" he remarked.
John, always interested in people rather than things, examined the room
carefully. Passing down the passage he had caught glimpses of other
rooms: some charmingly furnished, gay with chintz, embellished with
pictures, Japanese fans, silver cups, and other trophies. Comparing
these with his own apartment, John said shyly--
"It's not very beefy."
"Beefy? You smell of a private school, Verney. Now, is it worth doing
up? You see, I shall be in a two-room next term. If we all chip in----"
he paused.
"I've brought back two quid," said John.
Scaife's smile indicated neither approval nor the reverse. John's
ingenuous confidence provoked none in return.
"We'll talk about it when Kinloch arrives. I wonder why his people sent
him here."
John had studied some books, but not the Peerage. The great name of
Kinloch was new to him, not new to Scaife, who, for a boy, knew his
"Burke" too odiously well.
"Why shouldn't his people send him here?" he asked.
"Because," Scaife's tone was contemptuous, "because the
Kinlochs--they're a great cricketing family--go to Eton. The duke must
have some reason."
"The duke?"
"Hang it, surely you have heard of the Duke of Trent?"
"Yes," said John, humbly. "And this is his son?" He glanced at the label
on the new portmanteau.
"Whose son should he be?" said Scaife. "Well, it's queer. Dukes[3] and
dukes' sons come to Harrow--all the Hamiltons were here, and the
FitzRoys, and the St. Maurs--but the Kinlochs, as I say, have gone to
Eton. It's a rum thing--very. And why the deuce hasn't he turned up?"
The clanging of a bell brought both boys to their feet.
"Lock-up, and call-over," said Scaife. "Come on!"
They pushed their way down the passage. Several boys addressed Scaife.
"Hullo, Demon!--Here's the old Demon!--Demon, I thought you were going
to be sacked!"
To these and other sallies Scaife replied with his slightly ironical
smile. John perceived that his companion was popular and at the same
time peculiar; quite different from any boy he had yet met.
They filed into a big room--the dining-room of the house--a square,
lofty hall, with three long tables in it. On the walls hung some
portraits of famous Old Harrovians. As a room it was disappointing at
first sight, almost commonplace. But in it, John soon found out,
everything for weal or woe which concerned the Manor had taken place or
had been discussed. There were two fireplaces and two large doors. The
boys passed through one door; upon the threshold of the other stood the
butler, holding a silver salver, with a sheet of paper on it.
"What cheek!" murmured Scaife.
"Eh?" said John.
"Dirty Dick isn't here. Just like him, the slacker! And when he does
come over on our side of the House, he slimes about in carpet
slippers--the beast!"
Lawrence entered as Scaife spoke. John saw that his strongly-marked
eyebrows went up, when he perceived the butler. He approached, and took
the sheet of paper. The butler said impressively--
"Mr. Rutford is busy. Will you call over, sir?"
At any rate, the butler, Dumbleton, was worthy of the best traditions of
the Manor. He had a shrewd, clean-shaven face, and the deportment of an
archbishop. The Head of the House took the paper, and began to call
over the names. Each boy, as his name was called, said, "Here," or, if
he wished to be funny, "Here, _sir_!"
"Verney?"
The name rang out crisply.
"Here, _sir_," said John.
The Head of the House eyed him sharply.
"Kinloch?"
No answer.
"Kinloch?"
Scaife answered dryly: "Kinloch's portmanteau has come." Then Dumbleton
said in his smooth, bland voice, "His lordship is in the drawing-room
with Mr. Rutford."
The boys exchanged knowing glances. Scaife looked contemptuous. The next
moment the last name had been called, and the boys scurried into the
passages. Lawrence was the first to leave the hall. Impulsively, John
rushed up to him.
"I didn't mean to be funny, I didn't really," he panted.
"Quite right. It doesn't pay," Lawrence smiled grimly, "for new boys to
be funny. I saw you didn't mean it."
Lawrence spoke in a loud voice. John realized that he had so spoken
purposely, trying to wipe out a new boy's first blunder.
"Thanks awfully," said John.
He reached his room to find three other boys busily engaged in abusing
their house-master. They took no notice of John, who leaned against the
wall.
"His lordship is in the drawing-room with Mr. Rutford."
A freckle-faced, red-headed youth, with a big elastic mouth had imitated
Dumbleton admirably.
"What a snob Dick is!" drawled a very tall, very thin,
aristocratic-looking boy.
"And a fool," added Scaife. "This sort of thing makes him loathed."
"It _is_ a sell his being here."
All three fell to talking. The question still festering in John's mind
was answered within a minute. The "brute" was Rutford. Towards the end
of the previous term gossip had it that the master of the Manor had been
offered an appointment elsewhere. Whereat the worthier spirits in the
ancient house rejoiced. Now the joy was turned into wailing and gnashing
of teeth.
"Is he a beast to _us_?" said John.
The freckle-faced boy answered affably, "That depends. His Imperial
Highness"--he kicked the new portmanteau hard--"will not find Mr.
Richard Rutford a beast. Far from it. And he's civil to the Demon,
because his papa is a man of many shekels. But to mere outsiders, like
myself, a beast of beasts; ay, the very king of beasts, is--Dirty Dick."
And then--oh, horrors!--the door of No. 15 opened, and Rutford appeared,
followed by a seemingly young and very fashionably dressed lady. The
boys jumped to their feet. All, except Scaife, looked preternaturally
solemn. The house-master nodded carelessly.
"This is Scaife, Duchess," he said in his thick, rasping tones. "Scaife
and Verney, let me present you to the Duchess of Trent."
He mouthed the illustrious name, as if it were a large and ripe
greengage.
The duchess advanced, smiling graciously. "These"--Rutford named the
other boys--"are Egerton, Lovell, and--er--Duff."
Scaife, alone of those present, appreciated the order in which his
schoolfellows had been named. Egerton--known as the Caterpillar--was the
son of a Guardsman; Lovell's father was a judge; Duff's father an
obscure parson.
The duchess shook hands with each boy. "Your father and I are old
friends," she said to Egerton; "and I have had the pleasure of meeting
your uncle," she smiled at John.
Duff looked unhappy and ill at ease, because it was almost certain that
his last sentence had been overheard by the house-master. The duchess
asked a few questions and then took her leave. She and her son were
dining with the Head Master. Rutford accompanied her.
"Did the blighter hear?" said Duff.
"How could he help it with his enormous asses' ears?" said the tall,
thin Egerton.
Duff, an optimist, like all red-headed, freckled boys, appealed to the
others, each in turn. The verdict was unanimous.
"He hates me like poison," said Duff. "I shall catch it hot. What an
unlucky beggar I am!"
"Pooh!" said Scaife. "He knows jolly well that the whole school calls
him Dirty Dick."
But whatever hopes Duff may have entertained of his house-master's
deafness were speedily laid in the dust. Within five minutes Rutford
reappeared. He stood in the doorway, glaring.
"Just now, Duff," said he, "I happened to overhear your voice, which is
singularly, I may say vulgarly, penetrating. You were speaking of me,
your house-master, as 'Dick.' But you used an adjective before it. What
was it?"
Duff writhed. "I don't--remember."
"Oh yes, you do. Why lie, Duff?"
John's brown face grew pale.
"The adjective you used," continued Rutford, "was 'dirty.' You spoke of
_me_ as 'Dirty Dick,' and I fancy I caught the word 'beast.' You will
write out, if you please, one hundred Greek lines, accents and stops,
and bring them to me, or leave them with Dumbleton, _twenty-five_ lines
at a time, _every_ alternate half hour during the afternoon of the next
half holiday. Good night to you."
"Good night, sir," said all the boys, save John and Scaife.
"Good night, Verney."
Master and pupil confronted each other. John's face looked impassive;
and Rutford turned from the new boy to Scaife.
"Good night, Scaife."
Scaife drew himself up, and, in a quiet, cool voice, replied--
"Good night, sir."
Duff waited till Rutford's heavy step was no longer heard; then he
rushed at John.
"I say," he spluttered, "you're a good sort--ain't he, Demon? Refusing
to say 'Good night' to the beast because he was ragging me. But he'll
never forgive you--never!"
"Oh yes, he will," said Scaife. "It won't be difficult for Dirty Dick to
forgive the future Verney of Verney Boscobel."
John stared. "Verney Boscobel?" he repeated. "Why, that belongs to my
uncle. Mother and I hope he'll marry and have a lot of jolly kids of his
own."
"You hope he'll marry? Well, I'm----"
John's jaw stuck out. The emphasis on the "hope" and the upraised
eyebrow smote hard.
"You don't mean to say," he began hotly, "you don't _think_ that----"
"I can think what I please," said Scaife, curtly; "and so can you." He
laughed derisively. "_Thinking_ what they please is about the only
liberty allowed to new boys. Even the Duffer learned to hold his tongue
during his first term."
The Caterpillar--the tall, thin, aristocratic boy--spoke solemnly. He
was a dandy, the understudy--as John soon discovered--of one of the
"Bloods"; a "Junior Blood," or "Would-be," a tremendous authority on
"swagger," a stickler for tradition, who had been nearly three years in
the school.
"The Demon is right," said he. "A new boy can't be too careful, Verney.
Your being funny in hall just now made a dev'lish bad impression."
"But I didn't mean to be funny. I told Lawrence so directly after
call-over."
The Caterpillar pulled down his cuffs.
"If you didn't mean to be funny," he concluded, "you must be an ass."
Duff, however, remembered that John was nephew to an explorer.
"I say," he jogged John's elbow, "do you think you could get me your
uncle's autograph?"
"Why, of course," said John.
"Thanks. I've not a bad collection," the Duffer murmured modestly.
"And the gem of it," said Scaife, "is Billington's, the hangman! The
Duffer shivers whenever he looks at it."
"Yes, I do," said Duff, grinning horribly.
After supper and Prayers, John went to bed, but not to sleep for at
least an hour. He lay awake, thinking over the events of this memorable
day. Whenever he closed his eyes he beheld two objects: the spire of
Harrow Church and the vivid, laughing face of Desmond. He told himself
that he liked Desmond most awfully. And Scaife too, the Demon, had been
kind. But somehow John did not like Scaife. Then, in a curious
half-dreamy condition, not yet asleep and assuredly not quite awake, he
seemed to see the figure of Scaife expanding, assuming terrific
proportions, impending over Desmond, standing between him and the spire,
obscuring part of the spire at first, and then, bit by bit,
overshadowing the whole.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Byron, writing to John Murray, May 26, 1822, and giving directions
for the burial of poor little Allegra's body, says--
"I wish it to be buried in Harrow Church. There is a spot in the
churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the hill looking towards
Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, or
Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours as a boy: this was my
favourite spot; but, as I wish to erect a tablet to her memory, the body
had better be deposited in the church."
See also "Lines written beneath an elm in the churchyard of Harrow," in
"Hours of Idleness."
[2] "Speecher"--_i.e._ Speech-Day. At Harrow "er" is a favourite
termination of many substantives. "Harder," for hard-ball racquets,
"Footer," "Ducker," etc.
[3] The Duke of Dorset was Byron's fag. _Cf._--
"Though the harsh custom of our youthful band
Bade thee obey, and gave me to command."
_Hours of Idleness._
CHAPTER II
_Caesar_
"You come here where your brothers came,
To the old school years ago,
A young new face, and a Harrow name,
'Mid a crowd of strangers? No!
You may not fancy yourself alone,
You who are memory's heir,
When even the names in the graven stone
Will greet you with 'Who goes there--
You?--
Pass, Friend--All's well.'"
John never forgot that memorable morning when he learned for the first
time what place he had taken in the school. He sat with the other
new-comers, staring, open-eyed, at nearly six hundred boys, big and
small, assembled together in the Speech-room. So engrossed was he that
he scarcely heard the Head Master's opening prayers. John was obsessed,
inebriated, with the number of Harrovians, each of whom had once felt
strange and shy like himself. From his place close to the great organ,
he could look up and up, seeing row after row of faces, knowing that
amongst them sat his future friends and foes.
Suddenly, a neighbour nudged him. The Head Master was reading from a
list in his hand the school-removes, and the names and places taken by
new boys. He began at the lowest form with the name of a small urchin
sitting near John. The urchin blinked and blushed as he realized that he
was "lag of the school." John knew that he had answered fairly well the
questions set by the examiners; he had no fear of finding himself
pilloried in the Third Fourth; still, as form after form did not include
his name, he grew restless and excited. Had he taken a higher place
than the Middle Shell? Yes; no Verney in the Middle Shell. The Head
Master began the removes of the top Shell. Now, now it must be coming.
No; the clear, penetrating tones slowly articulated name after name, but
not his.
"Verney."
At last. Many eyes were staring at him, some enviously, a few
superciliously. John had taken the Lower Remove, the highest form but
one open to new boys. He was sipping the wine called Success.
Moreover, Desmond of the frank, laughing face and sparkling blue eyes,
and Scaife and Egerton were also in the Lower Remove.
After this, John sat in a blissful dream, hardly conscious of his
surroundings, seeing his mother's face, hearing her sigh of pleasure
when she learned that already her son was halfway up the school.
* * * * *
You may be sure those first forty-eight hours were brim-full of
excitements. First, John bought his books, stout leather-tipped,
leather-backed volumes, on which his name will be duly stamped on
fly-leaf and across the edges of the pages. And he bought also, from
"Judy" Stephens,[4] a "squash" racquet, "squash" balls, and a yard ball.
From the school Custos--"Titchy"--a noble supply of stationery was
procured. Moreover, young Kinloch announced that his mother had given
him three pounds to spend upon the decoration of No. 15, so Scaife
declared his intention of spending a similar sum, and in consequence No.
15 became a gorgeous apartment, the cynosure of every eye that passed.
The characters of the three boys were revealed plainly enough by their
simple furnishings. Scaife bought sporting prints, a couple of
Detaille's lithographs, and an easy-chair, known to dwellers upon the
Hill as a "frowst"; Kinloch hung upon his side of the wall four pretty
reproductions of French engravings, and with the help of three yards of
velveteen and some cheap lace he made a very passable imitation of the
mantel-cover in his mother's London boudoir; John scorned velveteen,
lace, "frowsts," and French engravings. He put his money into a pair of
red curtains, and one excellent photogravure of Landseer's "Children of
the Mist." Having a few shillings to spare, he bought half a dozen
ferns, which were placed in a box by the window, and watered so
diligently that they died prematurely.
Secondly, John played in a house-game at football, and learned the
difference between a scrimmage at a small preparatory school and the
genuine thing at Harrow. Lawrence insisted that all new boys should
play, and the Caterpillar informed him that he would have to learn the
rules of Harrow "footer" by heart, and pass a stiff examination in them
before the House Eleven, with the penalty of being forced to sing them
in Hall if he failed to satisfy his examiners. The Duffer lent him a
House-shirt of green and white stripes, and a pair of white duck shorts,
and with what pride John put them on, thinking of the far distant day
when he would wear a "fez"[5] instead of the commonplace house-cap!
Lawrence said a few words.
"You'll have to play the compulsory games, Verney, which begin after the
Goose Match,[6] but I want to see you playing as hard as ever you can in
the house-games. You'll be knocked about a bit; but a Verney won't mind
that--eh?"
"Rather not," said John, feeling very valiant.
Thirdly, there was the first Sunday, and the first sermon of the Head
Master, with its plain teaching about the opportunities and perils of
Public School life. John found himself mightily affected by the singing,
and the absence of shrill treble voices. The booming basses and
baritones of the big fellows made him shiver with a curious bitter-sweet
sensation never experienced before.
Lastly, the pleasant discovery that his Form treated him with courtesy
and kindness. Desmond, in particular, welcomed him quite warmly. And
then and there John's heart was filled with a wild and unreasonable
yearning for this boy's friendship. But Desmond--he was called "Caesar,"
because his Christian names were Henry Julius--seemed to be very
popular, a bright particular star, far beyond John's reach although for
ever in his sight. Caesar never offered to walk with him: and he refused
John's timid invitation to have food at the "Tudor Creameries."[7] Was
it possible that a boy about to enter Damer's would not be seen walking
and talking with a fellow out of Dirty Dick's? This possibility
festered, till one morning John saw his idol walking up and down the
School Yard with Scaife. That evening he said to Scaife--
"Do you like Desmond?"
"Yes," Scaife replied decisively. "I like him better than any fellow at
Harrow. You know that his father is Charles Desmond--the Cabinet
Minister and a Governor of the school?"
"I didn't know it. I suppose Caesar Desmond likes you--_awfully_."
"Do you? I doubt it."
No more was said. John told himself that Caesar--he liked to think of
Desmond as Caesar--could pick and choose a pal out of at least three
hundred boys, half the school. How extremely unlikely that he, John,
would be chosen! But every night he lay awake for half an hour longer
than he ought to have done, wondering how, by hook or crook, he could do
a service to Caesar which must challenge interest and provoke,
ultimately, friendship.
Meantime, he was slowly initiated by the Caterpillar into Harrow ways
and customs. Fagging, which began after the first fortnight, he found a
not unpleasant duty. After first and fourth schools the other fags and
he would stand not far from the pantry, and yell out "Breakfast," or
"Tea," as it might be, "for Number So-and-So." Perhaps one had to nip up
to the Creameries to get a slice of salmon, or cutlets, or sausages.
Fagging at Harrow--which varies slightly in different houses--is hard or
easy according to the taste and fancy of the fag's master. Some of the
Sixth Form at the Manor made their fags unlace their dirty football
boots. Kinloch, who since he left the nursery had been waited upon by
powdered footmen six feet high, now found, to his disgust, that he had
to varnish Trieve's patent-leathers for Sunday. Trieve was second in
command, and had been known as "Miss" Trieve. John would have gladly
done this and more for Lawrence, his fag-master; but Lawrence, a manly
youth, scorned sybaritic services. The Caterpillar taught John to carry
his umbrella unfolded, to wear his "straw" straight (a slight list to
port was allowed to "Bloods" only), not to walk in the middle of the
road, and so forth. How he used to envy the members of the Elevens as
they rolled arm-in-arm down the High Street! How often he wondered if
the day would ever dawn when Caesar and he, outwardly and inwardly linked
together, would stroll up and down the middle-walk below the Chapel
Terrace: that sunny walk, whence, on a fair day, you can see the
insatiable monster, London, filling the horizon and stretching red,
reeking hands into the sweet country--the middle-walk, from which all
but Bloods were rigidly excluded.
Much to his annoyance--an annoyance, be it said, which he managed to
hide--John seemed to attract young Kinloch almost as magnetically as he
himself was attracted to Caesar. John had not the heart to shake off the
frail, delicate child, who was christened "Fluff" after his first
appearance in public. Fluff had taken the First Fourth and ingenuously
confessed to any one who cared to listen that he ought to have gone to
Eton. A beast of a doctor prescribed the Hill. And even the almighty
duke failed to get him into Damer's, another grievance. He had been
entered since birth at the crack house at Eton; and now to be
pitchforked into Dirty Dick's at Harrow----! The Duffer kicked him,
feeling an unspeakable cad when poor Fluff burst into tears.
"Sorry," said the Duffer. "Only you mustn't slang Harrow. And you'd
better get it into your silly head that it's the best school in this or
any other world--isn't it, Demon?"
"I'm sure the Verneys, and the Egertons, and the Duffs have always
thought so."
"But it isn't really," whimpered poor Fluff. "You fellows know that
everybody talks of Eton and Harrow. Who ever heard of Harrow and Eton?
People say--I've heard my eldest brother, Strathpeffer, say it again and
again--'Eton and Harrow,' just as they say 'Gentlemen and Players.'"
"Oh," said the Caterpillar. "The Etonians are the gentlemen--eh? Well,
Fluff, after their performance at Lord's last year, you couldn't expect
us to admit that they're--players."
The Duffer chuckled.
"I say, Caterpillar, that was a good 'un."
"Not mine," said the Caterpillar, solemnly; "my governor's, you know."
The Duffer continued: "Now, Fluff, I won't touch your body, because you
might tumble to pieces, but if I hear you slanging the school or our
house, I'll pull out handfuls of fluff. D'ye hear?"
"Yes," said Fluff, meekly.
"Say '_Floreat Herga_' on your bended knees!"
Fluff obeyed.
"And remember," said the Duffer, impressively, "that we've had a king
here, haven't we, Caterpillar?"
"Yes," said the Caterpillar.
"I never believed it," said Scaife.
"He was a Spaniard,[8] or an Italian, you know," the Duffer explained.
"The duke of something or t'other; and an ambassador came down and
offered the beggar the Spanish crown, when he was in the First Fourth,
and of course he gobbled it--who wouldn't? And then Victor Emmanuel
interfered. That's all true, you can take your Bible oath, because my
governor told me so, and he--well, he's a parson."
"Then it _must_ be true," said Scaife. "Now, young Fluff, don't forget
that Harrow is a school fit for a king and nearer to Heaven than Eton by
at least six hundred feet."
So saying, the Demon marched out of the room, followed by Fluff,
slightly limping.
"Sorry I turfed[9] that little ass so hard," said the Duffer to John. "I
say, Verney, the Demon is rather a rum 'un, ain't he? Sometimes I can't
quite make him out. He's frightfully clever and all that, but I had a
sort of beastly feeling just now that he didn't--eh?--quite mean what he
said. Was he laughin' at _us_, pullin' our legs--what?"
John's brain worked slowly, as he had found out to his cost under a
form-master who maintained that it was no use having a fact stored in
the head unless it slipped readily out of the mouth. The Duffer, who
never thought, because speaking was so much easier, grew impatient at
John's silence.
"Well, you needn't look like an owl, Verney. You know that Scaife's
grandfather was a navvy."
"I don't know," John replied.
"And I don't care," said the Duffer. "Let's go and have some food at the
Creameries."
* * * * *
Looking back afterwards, John often wondered whether, unconsciously,
the Duffer had sown a grain of mustard-seed destined to grow into a
large tree. Or, had the intuition that Scaife was other than what he
seemed furnished the fertile soil into which the seed fell? In any case,
from the end of this first week began to increase the suspicion, which
eventually became conviction, that the Demon, keen at games, popular in
his house, clever at work--clever, indeed! inasmuch as he never achieved
more or less than was necessary--generous with his money, handsome and
well-mannered, blessed, in fine, with so many gifts of the gods, yet
lacked a soul.
This, of course, is putting into words the vague speculations and
reasonings of a boy not yet fourteen. If an Olympian--one of the
masters, for instance, or the Head of the House--had said, "Verney, has
the Demon a soul?" John would have answered promptly, "Ra--ther! He's
been awfully decent to Fluff and me. We'd have had a hot time if it
hadn't been for him," and so forth.... And, indeed, to doubt Scaife's
sincerity and goodness seemed at times gross disloyalty, because he
stood, firm as a rock, between the two urchins in his room and the
turbulent crowd outside. This defence of the weak, this guarding of
green fruit from the maw of Lower School boys, afforded Scaife an
opportunity of exercising power. He had the instincts of the potter,
inherited, no doubt; and he moulded the clay ready to his hand with the
delight of a master-workman. Nobody else knew what the man of millions
had said to his boy when he despatched him to Harrow; but the Demon
remembered every word. He had reason to respect and fear his sire.
"I'm sending you to Harrow to study, not books nor games, but boys, who
will be men when you are a man. And, above all, study their weaknesses.
Look for the flaws. Teach yourself to recognize at a glance the liar,
the humbug, the fool, the egotist, and the mule. Make friends with as
many as are likely to help you in after life, and don't forget that one
enemy may inflict a greater injury than twenty friends can repair.
Spend money freely; dress well; swim with the tide, not against it."
A year at Harrow confirmed Scaife's confidence in his father's worldly
wisdom. Big for his age, strong, with his grandsire's muscles, tough as
hickory, he had become the leader of the Lower School boys at the Manor.
The Fifth were civil to him, recognizing, perhaps, the expediency of
leaving him alone ever since the incident of the cricket stump. The
Sixth found him the quickest of the fags and uncommonly obliging. His
house-master signed reports which neither praised nor blamed. To Dirty
Dick the boy was the son of a man who could write a cheque for a
million.
* * * * *
Two things worthy of record happened within a month; the one of lesser
importance can be set down first. Charles Desmond, Caesar's father, came
down to Harrow and gave a luncheon at the King's Head. From time
immemorial the Desmonds had been educated on the Hill. The family had
produced some famous soldiers, a Lord Chancellor, and a Prime Minister.
In the Fourth Form Room the stranger may read their names carved in oak,
and they are carved also in the hearts of all ardent Harrovians. Mr.
Desmond, though a Cabinet Minister, found time to visit Harrow once at
least in each term. He always chose a whole holiday, and after attending
eleven-o'clock Bill[10] in the Yard, would carry off his son and his
son's friends. The School knew him and loved him. To the thoughtful he
stood for the illustrious past, the epitome of what John Lyon's[11] boys
had fought for and accomplished. Four sons had he--Harrovians all. Of
these Caesar was youngest and last. Each had distinguished himself on the
Hill either in work or play, or in both.
Charles Desmond stood upon the step just above the master who was
calling Bill.
"That's Caesar's father," said Scaife. "I'm going to lunch with him.
Isn't he a topper?"
John's eyes were popping out of his face. He had never seen any man like
this resplendent, stately personage, smiling and nodding to the biggest
fellows in the school.
"And my governor says," Scaife added, "that he's not a rich man, nothing
much to speak of in the way of income over and above his screw as a
Cabinet Minister."
Scaife moved away, and John could hear him say to another boy, in an
easy, friendly tone, "Mr. Desmond told Caesar that he wanted to meet
_me_--very civil of him--eh?"
Presently John was in line waiting to pass by the steps.
"Verney?"
"Here, sir."
He was hurrying by, with a backward glance at the great man. Suddenly
Caesar's father beckoned, nodding cheerily. John ascended the steps, to
feel the grasp of a strong hand, to hear a ringing voice.
"You're John Verney's nephew. Just so. I think I should have spotted
you, even if Harry had not told me you were in his form. You must lunch
with us. Cut along, now."
So John was dismissed, brim-full of happiness, which almost overflowed
when Caesar met him with an eager--
"I'm so glad, Verney. I say, the governor's a nailer at picking out the
old names, isn't he?"
So John ate his luncheon in distinguished company, and felt himself for
the first time to be somebody. As the youngest guest present, to him was
accorded the place of honour, next the most charming host in
Christendom, who put him at ease in a jiffy. How good the cutlets and
the pheasant tasted! And how the talk warmed the cockles of his heart!
The brand of the Crossed Arrows shone upon all topics. Who could expect,
or desire, aught else! Caesar's governor seemed to know what every
Harrovian had done worth the doing. Easily, fluently, he discoursed of
triumphs won at home, abroad, in the camp, on the hustings, at the bar,
in the pulpit. And his anecdotes, which illustrated every phase of life,
how pat to the moment they were! One boy complained ruefully of having
spent three terms under a form-master who had "ragged" him. Charles
Desmond sympathized--
"Bless my soul," said he, "don't I remember being three terms in the
Third Fifth when that tartar old Heriot had it? I dare swear I got no
more than my deserts. I was an idle vagabond, but Heriot made my life
such a burden to me that I entreated my people to take me away from
Harrow. And then my governor urged me to put my back into the work and
get a remove. And I did. And would you believe it, upon the first day of
the next term I wired to my people, 'You must take me away. I've got my
remove all right--and so has Heriot.'"
How gaily the speaker led the laugh which followed this recital! And the
chaff! Was it possible that Caesar dared to chaff a man who was supposed
to have the peace of Europe in his keeping? And, by Jove! Caesar could
hold his own.
So the minutes flew. But John noticed, with surprise, that the Demon
didn't score. In fact, John and he were the only guests that contributed
nothing to the feast save hearty appetites. It was strange that the
Demon, the wit of his house and form, never opened his mouth except to
fill it with food. He answered, it is true, and very modestly, the
questions addressed to him by his host; but then, as John reflected, any
silly fool in the Fourth Form could do that.
After luncheon, the boys were dismissed, each with a hearty word of
encouragement and half a sovereign. John was passing the plate-glass
splendours of the Creameries, when the Demon overtook him, and they
walked down the winding High Street together. Scaife had never walked
with John before.
"That was worth while," Scaife said quietly. John could not interpret
this speech, save in its obvious meaning.
"Rather," he replied.
"Why?" said Scaife, very sharply.
"Eh?"
"Why was it worth while?"
John stammered out something about good food and jolly talk.
"Pooh!" said Scaife, contemptuously. "I thought you had brains, Verney."
He glanced at him keenly. "Now, speak out. What's in that head of yours?
You can be cheeky, if you like."
John wondered how Scaife had divined that he wished to be cheeky. His
mentor had said so much to Fluff and him about the propriety of not
putting on "lift" or "side" in the presence of an older boy, that he had
choked back a retort which occurred to him.
"You're thinking," continued the Demon, in his clear voice, "that I
didn't use my brains just now, but, my blooming innocent, I can assure
you I did. Very much so. I played 'possum. Put that into your little
pipe and smoke it."
At four-o'clock Bill, John noticed Caesar's absence: a fact accounted for
by the presence of a mail-phaeton, which, he knew, belonged to Mr.
Desmond, drawn up--oddly enough--opposite the Manor. What a joke to
think that Caesar was drinking tea with Dirty Dick!
After Bill, having nothing better to do, John and Fluff went for a walk
on the Sudbury road. They had played football before Bill, and each had
realized his own awkwardness and insignificance. Poor Fluff, almost
reduced to tears, with a big black bruise upon his white forehead,
confessed that he preferred peaceful games--like croquet, and intended
to apply for a doctor's certificate of exemption. Demanding sympathy, he
received a slating.
"I play nearly as rotten a game as you do, Fluff," John said; "but
Scaife expects us to be Torpids,[12] so we jolly well have to buck up.
That bruise over your eye has taken off your painted-doll look. Now, if
you're going to blub, you'd better get behind that hedge."
Fluff exploded.
"This is a beastly hole," he cried. "And I loathe it. I'm going to write
to my father and beg him to take me away."
"You ought to be at a girls' school."
"I hate everything and everybody. I thought you were my friend, the only
friend I had."
John was somewhat mollified.
"I am your friend, but not when you talk rot."
"Verney, look here, if you'll be decent to me, I _will_ try to stick it
out. I wish I was like you; I do indeed. I wish I was like Scaife. Why,
I'd sooner be the Duffer, freckles and all, than myself."
John looked down upon the delicately-tinted face, the small, regular,
girlish features, the red, quivering mouth. Suddenly he grasped that
this was an appeal from weakness to strength, and that he, no older and
but a little bigger than Fluff, had strength to spare, strength to
shoulder burdens other than his own.
"All right," he said stiffly; "don't make such a fuss!"
"You'll have me for a friend, Verney?"
"Yes; but I ain't going to kiss your forehead to make it well, you
know."
"May I call you John, when we're alone? And I wish you'd call me Esme,
instead of that horrid 'Fluff.'"
John pondered deeply.
"Look here," he said. "You can call me John, and I'll call you Esme,
when we're Torpids. And now, you'd better cut back to the house. I must
think this all out, and I can't think straight when I look at you."
"May I call you John once?"
"You are the silliest idiot I ever met, bar none. Call me 'John,' or
'Tom Fool,' or anything; but hook it afterwards!"
"Yes, John, I will. You're the only boy I ever met whom I really wanted
for a friend." He displayed a radiant face, turned suddenly, and ran
off. John watched him, frowning, because Fluff was a good little chap,
and yet, at times, such a bore!
He walked on alone, chewing the cud of a delightful experience; trying,
not unsuccessfully, to recall some of Mr. Desmond's anecdotes. How proud
Caesar was of his father! And the father, obviously, was just as proud of
his son. What a pair! And if only Caesar were his friend! By Jove! It was
rather a rum go, but John was as mad keen to call Caesar friend as poor
Fluff to call John friend. Serious food for thought, this. "But I would
never bother him," said John to himself, "as Fluff has bothered me,
never!"
"Hullo, Verney!"
"Hullo!" said John.
Coincidence had thrust Caesar out of his thought and on to the narrow
path in front of him.
"I'm not a ghost," said Caesar.
John hesitated.
"I was thinking of you," he confessed; "and then I heard your voice and
saw you. It gave me a start. I say, it _was_ good of your governor to
ask me."
"Hang my governor! He's the----"
Caesar closed his lips firmly, as if he feared that terrible adjectives
might burst from them. John missed the sparkling smile, the gay glance
of the eyes.
"What's up?" he demanded.
Caesar hesitated; looked at John, read, perhaps, the sympathy, the honest
interest, possibly the affection, in the grey orbs which met his own so
steadily.
"What's up?" he repeated. "Why, I'm not going into Damer's, after all."
"Oh!" said John.
"My governor has just told me. I came down here to curse and swear."
"Not going into Damer's? What rot--for you!"
"It is sickening. Look here, Verney; I feel like telling you about it. I
know you won't go bleating all over the shop. No. I said to myself,
'Mum's the word,' but----"
John's heart beat, his body glowed, his grey eyes sparkled.
"It's like this," continued Caesar, after a slight pause. "Damer told the
governor that two fellows he had expected to leave at the end of this
term were staying on. The governor hinted that Damer added something
about straining a point, and letting me in ahead of three other fellows;
but the governor wouldn't listen to that----"
"Jolly decent of him," said John.
"Was it? In my opinion he ought to have thought of me first. All my
brothers have been at Damer's. And he knew I'd set my heart on going
there. Look how civil the fellows are to me. I've been in and out of the
house like a tame cat. Confound it! if Damer did want to strain a point,
why shouldn't he? The governor played his own game, not mine. What right
has he to be so precious unselfish at my expense? I argued with him; but
he can put his foot down. Let's cut all that. Of course, I don't want to
stop in a beastly Small House for ever, and, if Damer's is closed to me,
I should like Brown's, but Brown's is full too. And there are other good
houses. But where--where do you think I _am_ going?"
"Reeds?"
"I don't call Reed's so bad. No; I'm going to Dirty Dick's. I'm coming
to you."
"Oh, I say."
"Why, dash it all, you're grinning. I don't want to be a cad--Dirty
Dick's is _your_ house--but--after Damer's! O Lord!"
The grin faded out of John's face. Caesar's loss outweighed his own gain.
"Your governor was a Manorite," he said slowly.
"Yes, in its best days; and he's always had a sneaking liking for it;
but he knows, he knows, I say, that now it's rotten, and yet he sends me
there. Why?"
"Ask another," said John.
"I asked him another, and what do you think he said, in that peculiar
voice of his which always dries me up? 'Harry,' said he, 'when you're a
little older and a good deal wiser, you'll be able to answer that
question yourself.'"
John's face brightened. A glimmering of the truth shone out of the
darkness. He tried to advance nearer to it, gropingly.
"I dare say----"
"Well, go on!"
"Your governor may feel that we want a fellow like you."
John was blushing because he remembered what the Head of the House had
said about the Verneys. Desmond glanced at him keenly. He detested
flattery laid on too thick. But this was a genuine tribute. For the
first time he smiled.
"Thank you, Verney," he said, more genially. "What you say is utter rot;
but it was decent of you to say it, and I'm glad that you and I are
going to be in the same house."
For his life John could not help adding, "And Scaife, you forget
Scaife?" Jealousy pierced him as Scaife's name slipped out.
"Yes, there's the Demon. I always liked him."
"And he likes you."
"Does he? Good old Demon! I like to be liked. That's the Irish in me.
I'm half Irish, you know. I want fellows to be friendly to me. I'd
forgotten Scaife. That's rum too, because he's not the sort one forgets,
is he? No, I wonder if I could get into the Demon's room next term?"
"I'm in his room. It's a three-room."
"A two-room is much jollier."
"Our room is not bad."
Caesar was hardly listening. John caught a murmur: "The old Demon and I
would get along capitally."
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The racquet Professional.
[5] The cap of honour worn by the House Football Eleven.
[6] The Goose Match, the last cricket-match of the year, played between
the Eleven and Old Boys, on the nearest half-holiday to Michaelmas Day.
[7] A fashionable "tuck"-shop.
[8] H.R.H. Prince Thomas of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, was elected King by
the Cortes of Spain, October 3, 1869, while he was a boy at Harrow. The
crown was finally declined January 1, 1870. The Prince was nick-named
"King Tom."
[9] To "turf," _i.e._ to kick.
[10] Calling over.
[11] John Lyon founded Harrow School, 1571.
[12] Boys who have not been more than two years in the school are
eligible as "Torpids;" out of each house a Torpid football Eleven is
chosen.
CHAPTER III
_Kraipale_[13]
"Life is mostly froth and bubble;
Two things stand like stone--
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own."
Some five years afterwards John Verney learned what had passed between
Cabinet Minister and Head Master upon that eventful day which sent Caesar
to curse and swear upon the Sudbury road. The Head Master was not an
Harrovian, and on that account was the better able to perceive
time-honoured abuses. At Harrow the dominant chord among masters and
boys is a harmony of strenuousness and sentiment. Inevitably, the
sentiment becomes, at times, sentimental; and then strenuousness pushes
it into a corner. When honoured veterans are wearing out, loyalty,
gratitude for past service, reluctance to inflict pain, keep them in
positions of responsibility which mentally and physically they are unfit
to administer. It is almost as difficult to turn an Eton or Harrow
master out of his house, as to turn a parson of the Church of England
out of his pulpit. More, in selecting a house-master as in selecting a
parson, a man's claims to preferment are too often determined by
scholarship, by length of former service, by interest with authority,
rather than by ability to govern a body of boys made up of widely
different parts. A capable form-master may prove an incapable
house-master. Richard Rutford, to give a concrete example, came to
Harrow knowing nothing about Public Schools, and caring as little for
the traditions of the Hill, but with the prestige of being a Senior
Classic. Nobody questioned his ability to teach Greek. In his own line,
and not an inch beyond, the Governors were assured that Rutford was a
success. In due time he accepted a Small House, so small that its
autocrat's incapacity as an administrator escaped notice. Rutford waited
patiently for a big morsel. He wrote a couple of text-books; he married
a wife with money and influence; he entertained handsomely. It is true
he became popular neither with masters nor boys, but his wine was as
sound as his scholarship, and his wife had a peer for a second cousin.
Eventually he accepted the Manor. Within a month, those in authority
suspected that a blunder had been made; within a year they knew it. The
house began to go down. Leaven lay in the lump, but not enough to make
it rise, because the baker refused to stir the dough. First and last,
Rutford disliked boys, misunderstood them, insulted them, ignored those
who lacked influential connections, toadied and pampered the "swells."
Just before John Verney came to Harrow, the Manor was showing
unmistakable signs of decay. A new Head Master, recognizing "dry-rot,"
realizing the necessity of cutting it out, was confronted with that
bristling obstacle--Tradition. He possessed enough moral courage to have
told Rutford to resign, because in a thousand indescribable ways the man
had neglected his duty; but, so said the Tories, such a step might
provoke a public scandal, and if Rutford refused to go--what then?
Nothing definite could be proved against the man. His sins had been of
omission. Dismayed, not defeated, the Head Master considered other
methods of regenerating the Manor. Very quietly he made his appeal to
the Old Harrovians, many of whom were sending their sons and nephews to
other houses. He invited co-operation. John Verney, the Rev. Septimus
Duff, Colonel Egerton--half a dozen enthusiastic Manorites--stepped
forward. Lastly, for Charles Desmond the Head Master baited his hook.
"The reform which we have at heart," said he, "must come from within
and from below. The house wants a Desmond in it. I was not allowed to
wield the axe; but, after all, there are more modern methods of
decapitation. And, believe me, I am not asking any man more than I am
prepared to do myself. My own nephew goes to the Manor after next
holidays."
"Um!" said Mr. Desmond, stroking his chin.
"Lawrence, the Head of the House, is a tower of strength, like all the
Lawrences."
"How did you beguile the Duke of Trent?"
"Fortune gave me that weapon. The duke"--he laughed genially----
"Yes?"
"Will turn scales which my heaviest arguments won't budge. A bit of
luck! The duke wanted to send his son, a delicate lad, to Harrow, and I
did mention to him that Rutford had a vacancy."
"O Ulysses! And Scaife? How did you handle that large bale of
bank-notes?"
"Rutford captured Scaife."
"Handsome boy--his son. Lunched with us this morning. Well, well, you
have persuaded me. But what an unpleasant quarter of an hour I shall
have with Harry!"
* * * * *
As a new boy, John slaved at "footer," and displayed a curious
inaptitude for squash racquets. At all games Caesar and Scaife were
precociously proficient. John's clumsiness annoyed them. Often the
Caterpillar joined him and Fluff, giving them to understand that this
must be regarded as an act of grace and condescension which might be
suitably acknowledged at the Tudor Creameries.
The Caterpillar mightily impressed the two small boys. He had acquired
his nick-name from the very leisurely pace at which he advanced up the
school. He wore "Charity tails," as they were called, the swallow-tail
coat of the Upper School mercifully given to boys of the Lower School
who are too tall to wear with decency the short Eton jacket; he
possessed a trouser-press; and his "bags" were perfectly creased and
quite spotless. From tip to toe, at all seasons and in all weathers, he
looked conspicuously spick and span. Chaff provoked the solemn retort:
"One should be well groomed." He spoke impersonally, considering it bad
form to use for first person singular. Amongst the small boys he ranked
as the Petronius of the Lower School.
One day the Caterpillar said grandiloquently, "You kids will oblige me
by not shouting and yelling when you speak to me. I've a bit of a head."
"What's wrong with it?" said Fluff.
"It looks splendid _outside_," said John, in his serious voice.
The Caterpillar, detecting no cheek, answered gravely--
"Some of us had a wet night of it, last night."
"Wet?" exclaimed the innocent Fluff. "Why, all the stars were shining."
"Your brothers at Eton know what a 'wet night' means," said the
Caterpillar. "I was talking with one of the Fifth, when a fellow came in
with a flask. A gentleman ought to be able to carry a few glasses of
wine, but one is not accustomed to spirits."
"Spirits?"
"Whisky, not prussic acid, you know."
"But where do they get the whisky?" demanded John.
"Comparing it with my father's old Scotch, I should say at the
grocer's," replied the Caterpillar. "There's some drinking going on in
our house, and--and other things. One mentions it to you kids as a
warning."
"Thanks," said John.
"Not at all; you're rather decent little beggars. They" (the Fifth Form
was indicated), "they've let you alone so far, but you may have trouble
next term, so look out! And if you want advice, come to me."
Beneath his absurd pompous manner beat a kindly heart, and the small
boys divined this and were grateful. None the less the word "spirits"
frightened them. Next day John happened to find himself alone with
Caesar. Very nervously he asked the question--
"I say, do any of the big fellows at Damer's drink?"
"Drink? Drink--what?"
"Well, spirits."
Caesar snorted an indignant denial. The fellows at Damer's were above
that sort of thing. The house prided itself upon its tone. Tone
constituted Damer's glory, and was the secret of its success. John
nodded, but two days afterwards the Demon took him by the arm, twisted
it sharply, and said--
"What the deuce did you mean by telling Caesar that the Manorites drink?"
"Oh, Scaife--I didn't."
"You gave us away."
"_Us?_" John's eyes opened. "_You_ don't drink with 'em?" he faltered.
"Don't bother your head about what I do, or don't do." Scaife answered
roughly; "and because you took the Lower Remove don't think for an
instant that you are on a par with Caesar and me, or even the old
Caterpillar--for you ain't."
"I know that," said John, humbly.
"Don't forget it, or there may be ructions."
"I shan't forget it."
"That's right. And, by the way, you're getting into the habit of hanging
about Caesar, which bores him to death. Stop it."
But to this John made no reply. He read dislike in Scaife's bold eyes,
detected it in his clear, peremptory voice, felt it in the cruel twist
of the arm. And he had brains enough to know that Scaife was not the boy
to dislike any one without reason. John crawled to the conclusion that
Scaife had become jealous of his increasing intimacy with Desmond.
However, when the three boys were preparing their Greek for First
School, Scaife seemed his old self, friendly, amusing, and cool as a
cucumber. Long ago he had initiated John into Manorite methods of work.
"Our object is," he explained to the new boy, "to get through the 'swat'
with as little squandering of valuable time as possible. It doesn't pay
to be skewed. We must mug up our 'cons' well enough to scrape along
without 'puns' and extra school."
The three co-operated. Out of forty lines of Vergil, Scaife would be
fifteen, John fifteen, and the Caterpillar ten; _ten_, because, as he
pointed out, he had been nearly three years in the school. Then each
fellow in turn construed his lines for the benefit of the others. A
difficult passage was taken by Scaife to a clever friend in the Fifth.
Sometimes Scaife would be absent twenty minutes, returning flushed of
face, and slightly excited. John wondered if he had been drinking, and
wondered also what Caesar would say if he knew. About this time fear
possessed his soul that Caesar would come into the Manor and be taught by
Scaife to drink. An occasional nightmare took the form of a desperate
struggle between himself and Scaife, in which Scaife, by virtue of
superior strength and skill, had the mastery, dragging off the beloved
Caesar, to plunge with him into fathomless pools of Scotch whisky.
Somehow in these horrid dreams, Caesar played an impressive part. Scaife
and John fought for his body, while he looked on, an absurd state of
affairs, never--as John reflected in his waking hours--likely to happen
in real life. Of all boys Caesar seemed to be the best equipped to fight
his own battles, and to take, as he would have put it, "jolly good care
of himself."
After the first of the football house-matches, Scaife got his "fez" from
Lawrence, the captain of the House Eleven, and the only member of the
School Eleven in Dirty Dick's. Some of the big fellows in the Fifth
seized this opportunity to "celebrate," as they called it. Scaife was
popular with the Fifth because--as John discovered later--he cheerfully
lent money to some of them and never pressed for repayment. And
Scaife's getting his "fez" before he was fifteen might be reckoned an
achievement. Caesar, in particular, could talk of nothing else. He
predicted that the Demon would be Captain of both Elevens, school
racquet-player, and bloom into a second C. B. Fry.
John, upon this eventful evening, soon became aware of a shindy. It
happened that Rutford was giving a dinner-party, and extremely unlikely
to leave the private side of the house. John heard snatches of song,
howls, and cheers. Ordinarily Lawrence (in whose passage the shindy was
taking place) would have stopped this hullabaloo; but Lawrence was
dining with his house-master, and Trieve, an undersized, weakly
stripling, lacked the moral courage to interfere. John was getting a
"con" from Trieve when an unusually piercing howl penetrated the august
seclusion.
"What _are_ they doing?" asked Trieve, irritably.
John hesitated. "It's the Fifth," he blurted out. "They've got Scaife in
there, you know."
"Oh, indeed! Scaife is an excuse, is he, for this fiendish row? Go and
tell Scaife I want to see him."
John looked rather frightened. He felt like a spaniel about to retrieve
a lion. And scurrying along the passage he ran headlong into the Duffer,
to whom he explained his errand.
"Phew-w-w!" said that young gentleman. "I'd sooner it was you than me,
Verney. They're pretty well ginned-up, I can tell you."
John tapped timidly at the door of the room whence the songs and
laughter proceeded. Then he tapped again, and again. Finally, summoning
his courage, he rapped hard. Instantly there was silence, and then a
furtive rustling of papers, followed by a constrained "Come in!"
John entered.
Most of the boys--there were about six of them--gazed at him in
stupefaction. Scaife, very red in the face, burst into shrill shouts of
laughter. Somehow the laughter disconcerted John. He forgot to deliver
his message, but stood staring at Scaife, quaking with a young boy's
terror of the unknown. Upon the table were some siphons, syrups, and the
remains of a "spread."
"What the blazes do you want?" said Lovell, the owner of the room.
"I want Scaife," said John. "I mean that Trieve wants Scaife."
"Oh, Miss Trieve wants Master Scaife, does she? Well, young 'un, you
tell Trieve, with my compliments, that Scaife can't come. See? Now--hook
it!"
But John still stared at Scaife. The boy's dishevelled appearance, his
wild eyes, his shrill laughter, revealed another Scaife.
"You'd better come, Scaife," he faltered.
"Not I," said Scaife. He spoke in a curiously high-pitched voice, quite
unlike his usual cool, quiet tone. "Wait a mo'--I'm not Trieve's fag.
I'm nobody's fag now, am I?"
He appealed to the crowd. It was an unwritten rule at the Manor that
members of the House cricket or football Elevens were exempt from
fagging. But the common law of fagging at Harrow holds that any lower
boy is bound to obey the Monitors, provided such obedience is not
contrary to the rules of the school. In practice, however, no boy is
fagged outside his own house, except for cricket-fagging in the summer
term.
"Fag? Not you? Tell Miss Trieve to mind her own business."
John departed, feeling that an older and wiser boy might have tact to
cope with this situation. For him, no course of action presented itself
except delivering what amounted to a declaration of war.
"Won't come? Is he mad?"
"'Can't come,' they said."
"Oh, can't come? Has he hurt himself--sprained anything?"
John was truthful (more of a habit than some people believe). He told
the truth, just as some boys quibble and prevaricate, simply and
naturally. But now, he hesitated. If he hinted--a hint would
suffice--that Scaife had hurt himself--and what more likely after the
furious bit of playing which had secured his "fez"?--Trieve, probably,
would do nothing. John felt in his bones that Trieve would be glad of an
excuse to do--nothing.
"No; he hasn't sprained himself."
"Then why don't he come?"
"I--I----" Then he burst into excited speech. "He looks as if he _was_ a
little mad. Oh, Trieve, won't you leave him alone? Please do! They must
stop before prayers, and then Lawrence will be here."
O unhappy John--thou art not a diplomatist! Why lug in Lawrence, who has
inspired mordant jealousy and envy in the heart of his second in
command?
"Tell Scaife to come here at once," said Trieve, eyeing a couple of
canes in the corner. "And if he should happen to ask what I want him
for, say that I mean to whop him."
John fled.
"Whop him?"
The Fifth howled rage and remonstrance. Scaife fiercely announced his
intention of not taking a whopping from Trieve. None the less, the
announcement had a sobering effect upon the elder boys. The consequence
of a refusal must prove serious. Sooner or later Scaife would be
whopped, probably by Lawrence, no ha'penny matter that!
"You'd better go, Demon," said Lovell. "Trieve can't hurt you. I'd speak
to the idiot, only he hates me so poisonously, just as I hate him."
"I'll go," said the Caterpillar.
John had not noticed the Caterpillar before. He stood up, spick and
span, carefully adjusting his coat, pulling down his immaculate cuffs.
"Good old Caterpillar," said somebody. "By Jove, he really thinks that
Trieve will listen to--him!"
"Any one who has been nearly three years in this house," said the
Caterpillar, "has the right to tell Miss Trieve that she is--er--not
behaving like a lady."
"And he'll tell you you're screwed, you old fool."
"I am not screwed," replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. "Whisky and
potass does not agree with everybody; but I am not screwed, not at all."
So speaking he sat down rather suddenly.
Lovell shrugged his shoulders, glanced at the Caterpillar and Scaife,
and left the room. Within two minutes he returned, chapfallen and
frowning.
"I knew it would be useless. Look here, Demon, you must grin and bear
it."
"No," said Scaife, "not from Miss Trieve."
He laughed as before. The Fifth exchanged glances. Then Scaife said
thickly, "Give me another drink, I want a drink; so does young Verney.
Look at him!"
John was white about the gills and trembling, but not for himself.
"Do go, Scaife!" he entreated.
The Fifth formed a group; holding a council of war, engrossed in trying
to find a way out of a wood which of a sudden had turned into a tangled
thicket. And so what each would have strenuously prevented came to pass.
Scaife pulled a bottle from under a sofa-cushion, and put it to his
lips--John, standing at the door, could not see what was taking place.
When the bottle was torn from Scaife's hands, the mischief had been
done. The boy had swallowed a quantity of raw spirit. Till now the
whisky had been much diluted with mineral water.
"I'm going to him," yelled Scaife, struggling with his friends. "And I'm
going to take a cricket stump with me. Le'me go--le'me go!"
The Caterpillar surveyed him with disgust. After a brief struggle Scaife
succumbed, helpless and senseless.
"One is reminded sometimes," said the Caterpillar, solemnly, "that the
poor Demon is the son of a Liverpool merchant, bred in or about the
Docks."
Nobody, however, paid any attention to Egerton, who, to do him justice,
was the only boy present absolutely unmindful of his own peril.
Expulsion loomed imminent. The window was flung wide open, eau de
Cologne liberally applied. Scaife lay like a log.
And then, in the middle of the confusion, Trieve walked in.
"Scaife has had a sort of fit," explained an accomplished liar. "You
know what his temper is, Trieve? And when he heard that you meant to
'whop' him, he went stark, staring mad."
This explanation was so near the truth that Trieve accepted it, probably
with mental reservations.
"You had better send for Mrs. Puttick," he replied coldly.
The Caterpillar was despatched for the matron; but before that worthy
woman panted upstairs, Scaife had been carried to his own room, hastily
undressed and put into bed, where he lay breathing stertorously. The
matron, good, easy soul, accepted the boys' story unhesitatingly. A fit,
of course, poor dear child! Mr. Rutford must be summoned.
With the optimism of youth, those present began to hope that dust might
be thrown into the eyes of Dirty Dick. And, with a little discreet
delay, the Demon might recover, when he could be relied upon to play his
part with adroitness and ability. Accordingly, the matron was urged to
try her ministering hand first, amid the chaff, which, even in
emergencies, slips so easily out of boys' mouths.
"Mrs. Puttick, you're better than any doctor--Scaife is all right,
_really_. We knew that he was subject to fits--Rather! Some one was
telling me that one of his aunts died in a fit"--"Shut up, you silly
fool," this in a whisper, emphasized by a kick; "do you want to send her
out of this with a hornets' nest tied to her back hair?--That's a lie,
Mrs. Puttick. He's humbugging you. Scaife told me that his fits were
nothing. Yes; he had a slight sun-stroke when he was a kid, you know,
and the least bit of excitement affects him."
"Perhaps I'd better fetch a drop of brandy," said Mrs. Puttick, staring
anxiously at Scaife. "He looks very bad."
"Yes, please do, Mrs. Puttick."
She bustled away.
"Now we _must_ bring him to," said the Fifth Form.
Everything was tried, even to the expedient of flicking Scaife's body
with a wet towel; but the body lay motionless, his face horribly red
against the white pillow, his heavy breathing growing more laboured and
louder. And despite the perfume of the eau de Cologne which had drenched
pillow and pyjamas, the smell of whisky spread terror to the crowd. If
Rutford came in, he would swoop on the truth.
"We'll souse the brandy all over him," said the Caterpillar; "and then
no one can guess."
"How about burnt feathers?" suggested Lovell. He had seen a fainting
housemaid treated with this family restorative.
Mrs. Puttick appeared with the brandy, which Lovell administered
externally. Still, Scaife remained unconscious. Then a pillow was ripped
open, and enough feathers burned to restore--as the Caterpillar put it
afterwards--a ruined cathedral. The stench filled the passage and
brought to No. 15 a chattering crowd of Lower Boys. And then the
conviction seized everybody that Scaife was going to die.
"Make way, make way, please!"
It was Rutford, who, followed by Lawrence, strode down the passage into
No. 15, and up to the bed.
"If you please, sir," said Lovell, "Scaife has had a fit."
"It looks like a fit," said Rutford, gravely. "I have telephoned for the
doctor. You've tried," he sniffed the air, "all the wrong remedies, of
course. Feathers--phaugh!--perfume--brandy! The boy must be propped up
and the blood drawn from his head by applying hot water to his feet."
The Fifth exchanged glances. Why had this not occurred to them? What a
fool Mrs. Puttick was!
"A rush of blood to the head!" Rutford liked to hold forth, and he had
been told that he was a capital after-dinner speaker. He had just risen
from an excellent dinner; he was not much alarmed; and his audience
listened with flattering attention. Scaife was lifted into a chair; ice
was applied to his head; his feet were thrust into a "tosh" filled with
steaming water.
"Note the effect," said Rutford. Already a slight change might be
perceived; the breathing became easier, the face less red. Rutford
continued in his best manner: "Mark the _vis medicatrix naturae_. Nature,
assisted by hot water, gently accomplishes her task. Very simple, and
not one of you had the wit to think of a remedy close at hand, and so
easy to administer. The breathing is becoming normal. In a few minutes I
predict that we shall have the satisfaction of seeing the poor dear
fellow open his eyes, and he will tell us that he is but little the
worse. Yes, yes, a rush of blood to the head producing cerebral
disturbance."
He smiled blandly, receiving the homage of the Fifth.
"And now, Lovell, what do you know about this? Did this fit take place
here?"
"In my room, sir."
"In your room--eh? What was Scaife, a Lower Boy, doing in your room?"
"Lawrence gave him his 'fez' to-day, sir."
Lawrence nodded.
"Ah! And Scaife was excited, perhaps unduly excited--eh?"
The Fifth joined in a chorus of, "Yes, sir--Oh, yes, sir--awfully
excited, sir--never saw a boy so excited, sir."
"That will do. Now, Lovell, go on!"
"We had some siphons in our room, sir." A stroke of genius this--for the
siphons were still on the table and the syrups, and the _debris_ of
cakes and meringues. Rutford would be sure to examine the scene of the
catastrophe; and the whisky bottle was carefully hidden. "We were having
a spread, sir, and we asked Scaife to join us. His play to-day made him
one of us."
The other boys gazed admiringly at Lovell. What a cool, knowing hand!
"Yes, yes, I see nothing objectionable about that."
"Well, sir--we were rather noisy----"
"Go on."
"To speak the exact truth, sir, I fear we were _very_ noisy; and Trieve,
it seems, heard us. Instead of sending for me, sir, he sent Verney for
Scaife----"
"Ah!"
Lovell's hesitation at this point was really worthy of Coquelin _cadet_.
"Of course you know, sir, that Scaife's getting his 'fez' releases him
from house-fagging. We thought Trieve had forgotten that, sir; and that
it would be rather fun--I'm not excusing myself, sir--we thought it
would be a harmless joke if we persuaded Scaife not to go."
"Um!"
"We were very foolish, sir. And then Trieve sent another message saying
that Scaife was to go to his room at once to be--whopped."
"To be whopped. Um! Rather drastic that, very drastic under the
circumstances."
"So we thought, sir; and I went to represent the facts to Trieve----"
"Well?"
"I'm not much of a peacemaker, I fear, sir. Trieve refused to listen to
me. He insisted upon whopping Scaife for what he called disobedience and
impudence. Upon my honour, sir, I tried, we all tried, to persuade
Scaife to take his whopping quietly, but he seemed to go quite mad. He
has a violent temper, sir----"
"Yes, yes."
"A very violent temper. He--he----"
"Frothed at the mouth," put in a bystander. "I particularly noticed
that."
"Really, really----"
"Yes," said Lovell, nodding his head reflectively. "He frothed at the
mouth, and then----"
"Grew quite black in the face," interpolated a third boy, who was
determined that Lovell should not carry off all the honours.
"I should say--purple," amended Lovell. "And then he gave----"
"A beastly gurgle----"
"A sort of snort, and fell flat on his face. I'm not sure that he didn't
strike the edge of the table as he fell."
"He did," said one of the boys. "I saw that."
At this moment Scaife moved in his chair, drawing all eyes to his face.
John, peering from behind the circle of big boys, could see the first
signs of returning consciousness, a flicker of the eyelids, a convulsive
tremor of the limbs. Rutford bent down.
"Well, my dear Scaife, how are you? We've been a little anxious, all of
us, but, I ventured to predict, without cause. Tell us, my poor boy, how
do you feel?"
Scaife opened his eyes. Then he groaned dismally. Rutford was standing
to the right of the chair and foot-bath. The Fifth were facing Scaife.
He met their anxious, admonishing glances, unable to interpret them.
Lovell senior repeated the house-master's question--
"How are you, old chap?"
But, in his anxiety to convey a warning, he came too near, obscuring
Rutford's massive figure. Scaife groaned again, putting his hand to his
head.
"How am I?" he repeated thickly. "Why, why, I'm jolly well screwed,
Lovell; that's how I am! Jolly well screwed--hay? Ugh! how screwed I am.
Ugh!"
The groans fell on a terrifying silence. Rutford glanced keenly from
face to face. Then he said slowly--
"The wretched boy is--_drunk_!"
At the sound of his house-master's voice, Scaife relapsed into an
insensibility which no one at the moment cared to pronounce counterfeit
or genuine. Rutford glared at Lovell.
"Who was in your room, Lovell?"
Without waiting for Lovell to answer, the other boys, each in turn,
said, "I, sir," or "Me, sir." John came last.
"Anybody else, Lovell?"
A discreet master would not have asked this question, but Dirty Dick was
the last man to waive an advantage. Now, the Caterpillar had quietly
left No. 15, as soon as Rutford entered it. Not from any cowardly
motive, but--as he put it afterwards--"because one makes a point of
retiring whenever a rank outsider appears. One ought to be particular
about the company one keeps." It says something for the boy's character,
that this statement was accepted by the house as unvarnished truth.
Lovell glanced at the other Fifth Form boys, as Rutford repeated the
question.
"Anybody else, Lovell? Be careful how you answer me!"
"Nobody else," said Lovell.
"On your honour, sir?"
"On my honour, sir."
And, later, all Manorites declared that Lovell had lied like a
gentleman. Rutford and he stared at each other, the boy pale, but
self-possessed, the big, burly man flushed and ill at ease.
"You will all go to my study. A word with you, Lawrence."
The boys filed quietly out. Rutford looked at John and Fluff. Large, fat
tears were trickling down Fluff's cheeks. Somehow he felt convinced
that John was involved in a frightful row.
"Run away, Kinloch," said his house-master. "I wish to speak with
Lawrence and Verney."
He turned to Lawrence as he spoke. John glanced at Scaife. His eyes were
open. Silently, Scaife placed a trembling finger upon his lips. The
action, the expression in the eyes, were unmistakable. John understood,
as plainly as if Scaife had spoken, that silence, where expulsion
impended, was not only expedient but imperative. Kinloch crept out of
the room. Rutford examined Scaife, who feigned insensibility. Then he
addressed Lawrence.
"Go to Lovell's room, Lawrence, and institute a thorough search. If you
find wine or spirits, let me know at once."
Lawrence left the room.
"Now, Verney, I am going to ask you a few questions." He assumed his
rasping, truculent tone. "And don't you dare to tell me lies, sir!"
John was about to repudiate warmly his house-master's brutal injunction,
when the habit of thinking before he spoke closed his half-opened lips.
Immediately, his face assumed the obstinate, expressionless look which
made those who searched no deeper than the surface pronounce him a dull
boy. Rutford, for instance, interpreted this stolidity as unintelligence
and lack of perception. John, meantime, was struggling with a thought
which shaped itself slowly into a plan of action. He had just heard
Lovell lie to save the Caterpillar. John knew well enough that he might
be called upon to lie also, to save not himself, but Scaife. If he held
his tongue and refused to answer questions, Rutford would assume, and
with reason, that Scaife had been made drunk by the Fifth Form fellows.
Then John said quietly, "I am not a liar, sir."
"Certainly, I have never detected you in a lie," said Rutford.
"All the same," continued John, in a hesitating manner, "I _would_ lie,
if I thought a lie might save a friend's life."
Rutford was so unprepared for this deliberate statement, that he could
only reply--
"Oh, you would, would you?"
"Yes," said John; then he added, "Any decent boy or man would."
"Oh! Oh, indeed! This is very interesting. Go on, Verney."
"Scaife said he _felt_ as if he was jolly well screwed, sir; but he
isn't. I'm quite sure he isn't. He may feel like it; but he isn't."
John could see Scaife's eyes, slightly blood-shot, but sparkling with a
sort of diabolical sobriety. At that moment, one thing alone seemed
certain, Scaife had regained full possession of his faculties. Rutford
stared at John, frowning.
"You dare to look me in the face and tell me that Scaife is not drunk?"
Very seriously, John answered, "I'm sure he's not drunk, sir."
Rutford eyed the boy keenly.
"Have you ever seen anybody drunk?" he demanded.
"I live in the New Forest," said John, as gravely as before, "and on
Whit-Monday----" He was aware that he had made an impression upon this
big, truculent man.
"Don't try to be funny with me, Verney."
"On no, sir, as if I should dare!"
"Well, well, we are wasting time. Trieve sent you to Lovell's room to
fetch Scaife?"
"Yes, sir."
"And what was Scaife doing when you went into the room? Be very
careful!"
John considered. "He was laughing, sir."
"Laughing, was he?"
"But he stopped laughing when I gave him Trieve's message, and then he
said what Lovell told you, sir."
"Never mind what Lovell told me. Give me your version of the story."
"Scaife asked the other fellows if Trieve had any right to fag him, now
that he had got his 'fez.' If he had been drunk, sir, he wouldn't have
thought of that, would he?"
"Um," said Rutford, slightly shaken. John described his return to
Trieve's room, and Trieve's threat.
"Lovell and you tell the same story."
"Why, yes, sir." John made no deliberate attempt to look simple; but his
face, to the master studying it, seemed quite guileless.
Just then, Dumbleton ushered in the doctor. To him Rutford recited what
he knew and what he suspected. He had hardly finished speaking, when
Scaife opened his eyes for the second time. By a curious coincidence,
the doctor used the words of the house-master.
"Well, sir, how do you feel?"
And then Scaife answered, in the same dazed fashion as before--
"I feel as if I was jolly well screwed, sir."
Rutford nodded portentously.
"I feel," continued Scaife, "as I did once long ago, when I was a kid
and got hold of some curacoa at one of my father's parties."
"Just so," said the doctor.
"Same buzzing in the head, same beastly feeling, same--same old--same
old--giddiness." He closed his eyes, and his head fell heavily upon his
chest.
"It looks like concussion," said the doctor, doubtfully. "You say he
fell?" He turned to John.
"I was just outside the door," said John.
"We'll put him into the sick-room, Mr. Rutford. And in a day or two
he'll be himself again."
"Are you sure that what I--er--feared--er----?"
The doctor frowned. "The boy has had brandy, of course."
"Mrs. Puttick and Lovell gave him plenty of that," John interpolated.
"I believe you can exonerate the boy entirely," said the doctor.
John saw that Rutford seemed relieved.
"I have ordered Lovell's room to be searched. If no wine or spirits are
found, I shall be glad to believe that I have made a very pardonable
mistake."
While Scaife was being removed, Lawrence came in with his report.
Nothing alcoholic had been discovered in Lovell's room. After prayers,
which were late that night, Dirty Dick made a short speech.
"I had reason to suspect," said he, "that a gross breach of the rules of
the school had been made to-night by certain boys in this house. It
appears I was mistaken. No more will be said on the subject by me; and I
think that the less said by you, big and small, the better. Good night."
He strode away into the private side.
Two days later, Scaife came back to No. 15. John wondered why he stared
at him so hard upon the first occasion when they happened to be alone.
Then Scaife said--
"Well, young Verney, I shan't forget that, if it hadn't been for you, I
should have been sacked. And I shan't forget either that you're not half
such a fool as you look."
John exhibited surprise.
"The way you handled the beast," continued Scaife, "was masterly. I
heard every word, though my head was bursting. I shall tell Lovell that
you saved us. Oh, Lord--didn't I give the show away?"
He never tried to read the perplexity upon the other's face, but went
away laughing. He came back with the Caterpillar half an hour later, and
the three boys sat down as usual to prepare some Livy. John was sensible
that his companions treated him not only as an equal--a new and
agreeable experience--but as a friend. In the course of the first ten
minutes Scaife said to the Caterpillar--
"He told Dick to his face that he would lie to save a pal."
And the Caterpillar replied seriously, "Good kid, very good kid. Lovell
says he's going to give a tea in his honour."
"No, he isn't. It's my turn."
Accordingly, upon the next half-holiday, Scaife gave a tea at the
Creameries. Of all the strange things that had happened during the past
fortnight, this to our simple John seemed the strangest. He was not
conscious of having done or said anything to justify the esteem and
consideration in which Scaife, the Caterpillar, and Lovell seemed to
hold him.
"You've forgotten Desmond," he said to Scaife, when the latter mentioned
the names of his guests.
"Caesar isn't coming. By the way, Verney, you've not been talking to
Caesar about the row in our house?"
"No," said John. "Lawrence came round and said that I must keep my mouth
shut."
"And naturally you did what you were told to do?"
The half-mocking tone disappeared in a burst of laughter as John
answered--
"Yes, of course."
"And I suppose it never entered your head that Lawrence would not have
been so particular about shutting your mouth without good reason."
"Perhaps," said John, after a pause, "Lawrence was in a funk lest,
lest----"
"Go on!"
"Lest the thing should be exaggerated."
"Exactly. Lots of fellows would go about saying that I was dead
drunk--eh?"
"They might."
"And that would be coming dangerously near the truth."
"Oh, Scaife! Then you really _were_----"
Scaife laughed again. "Yes, I really was, my Moses in the bulrushes!
Don't look so miserable. I guessed all along that you weren't _quite_ in
the know. Well, I'm every bit as grateful. You stood up to Dick like a
hero. And my tea is in your honour."
"Oh, Scaife--you--you won't do it again?"
"Get screwed?" said Scaife, gravely. "I shall not. It isn't good enough.
We've chucked the stuff away."
"If they'd found it----"
"Ah--if! The old Caterpillar attended to that. He's a downy bird, I can
tell you. When Dick came into our room, he slipped back to Lovell's
room, carried off the whisky, hid it, washed the glasses, and then
dirtied them with siphon and syrup. The Caterpillar and you showed great
head. We shall drink your healths to-morrow--in tea and chocolate."
John wondered what Scaife had said to the Fifth. At any rate, they asked
John no questions, and treated him with distinguished courtesy and
favour; but that evening, when John was fagging in Lawrence's room, the
great man said abruptly--
"I saw you walking with Lovell senior this afternoon."
John explained. Lawrence frowned.
"Oh, you've been celebrating, have you? Thanksgiving service at the
Creameries. Now, look here, Verney, I've met your uncle, and he asked me
to keep an eye on you. Because of that I made you my fag--you, a green
hand, when I had the pick of the House."
"It was awfully good of you," said John, warmly.
"We'll sink that. I'm five years older than you, and I know every
blessed--and _cursed_"--he spoke with great emphasis--"thing that goes
on in this house. I know, for instance, that dust was thrown, and very
cleverly thrown, into Rutford's eyes, and you helped to throw it. Don't
speak! You didn't quite know what you were up to. Well, it's lucky for
Lovell and Co. that one innocent kid was mixed up in that affair. But
it's been rather unlucky for you. I'd sooner see you kicked about a bit
by those fellows than petted. I'm sorry--sorry, do you hear?--the whole
lot were not sacked. And now you can hook it. I've said enough, perhaps
too much, but I believe I can trust you."
After this John showed his gratitude by painstaking attention to
fagging. Lawrence became aware of faithful service: that his toast was
always done to a turn, that his daily paper was warmed, as John had seen
the butler at home warm the _Times_, that his pens were changed, his
blotting-paper renewed, and so forth. In John's eyes, Lawrence occupied
a position near the apex of the world's pyramid of great men.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] {kraipale} is translated by Liddell and Scott as "the result of a
debauch."
CHAPTER IV
_Torpids_
"Again we rush across the slush,
A pack of breathless faces,
And charge and fall, and see the ball
Fly whizzing through the bases."
The remainder of the term slipped away without farther accident or
incident. Apart from the preparation of work, John saw little of Scaife
or Egerton. The Fifth nodded to him in a friendly fashion when he passed
them in the street, and, greater kindness on their part, left him alone.
Possibly, Lawrence had said a word to Lovell. Such leisure as John
enjoyed (a new boy at Harrow has not much) he spent with the devoted
Fluff. Desmond and Scaife walked together on Sunday afternoons. But the
fact that Desmond seemed to be vanishing out of his horizon made no
difference to John's ever-increasing affection for him. Very humbly, he
worshipped at a distance. On clear, dry days Fluff and he would climb to
the top of the wall of the squash racquet-courts to see Scaife and
Desmond play a single. They were extraordinarily well-matched in
strength, activity, and skill. John noticed, however, that the Demon
lost his temper when he lost a game, whereas Caesar only laughed. Somehow
John divined that the Demon was making the effort of his life to secure
Desmond's friendship. And Caesar had ideals, standards to which the Demon
pretended to attain. Good, simple John made sure that Caesar would
elevate the Demon to his plane, that evil would be exorcised by good.
Only in his dreams did the Demon have the advantage.
Just before the end of the term, Caesar said to him--
"After all, I'm jolly glad I'm coming into your House, because the old
Demon is such a ripper; and he and I have been talking things over. He's
as mad keen as I am about games, and although the Manorites have not
played in a cock-house match at cricket or footer for years, still there
is a chance for us at Torpids next term. You'll play, Verney. You've
improved a lot, so the Demon says, and he'll be captain. Then there are
the sports. If only Dirty Dick could be knocked on the head, the Manor
might jump to the front again."
"It will," said John.
When the School reassembled after Christmas, Desmond entered the Manor,
and found himself with Scaife in a two-room. A civil note from the man
of millions had arranged this. To John was given a two-room, also, with
the Duffer as stable companion. Fluff remained in No. 15. The Duffer had
got his remove from the Top Shell into John's form. Scaife and Desmond
were elevated into the Upper Remove. It followed, therefore, that Scaife
and Desmond prepared work in their own room, the Caterpillar joining the
Duffer and John. Thus it will be seen that, although Desmond had become
a Manorite, he was, practically speaking, out of John's orbit.
The Caterpillar had now been three years in the school, and he governed
himself accordingly. He put on a "barmaid"[14] collar and spent much
time on the top step of the boys' entrance to the Manor. No mere
two-year-old presumed to occupy this sacred spot. Had he dared to do so,
the Caterpillar would have made things very sultry for him. Also, he
informed the Duffer and John that, by virtue of his position, he
proposed to prepare no work at all. Each "con" was divided into two
equal parts: the Duffer "mugged" up one; John the other. Then the
Caterpillar would be summoned, and glean the harvest. The Duffer had a
crib or two, but the Caterpillar forbade their use.
"You kids," said he, "ought not to use 'Bohns.' Besides, it's
dangerous."
The Caterpillar's deportment and coolness filled John and the Duffer
with respect and admiration. The master in charge of the Lower Remove
happened to be short-sighted. The Caterpillar took shameful advantage of
this. At repetitions, for instance, he would read Horace's odes off a
torn-out page concealed in the palm of his hand, or--if practicable--pin
the page on to the master's desk.
He had genius for extricating himself (and others) out of what boys call
tight places. One anecdote, well known to the Lower School and repeated
as proof of the Caterpillar's masterly methods, may serve to illustrate
the sort of influence Egerton wielded. When he was in the Fourth, his
form met in the Old Schools in a room not far from that august chamber
used by the Head Master and Upper Sixth. One day, the master in charge
of the form happened to be late. The small boys in the passage
celebrated his absence with dance and song. When the belated man
arrived, a monitor awaited him. The Head Master presented his
compliments to Mr. A---- and wished to learn the names of the boys who
had created such a scandalous disturbance. Mr. A---- invited the
roysterers to give up their names under penalties of extra school.
Hateful necessity! Silence succeeded. A---- grew irate. The monitor
tried to conceal a smile.
"Any boy who was making any noise at all--stand up."
The Caterpillar rose slowly, long and thin, spick and span.
"If you please, sir," said he, "I was _whispering_!"
A----'s sense of humour was tickled.
"My compliments to the Head Master," said he, "and please tell him that
I find, on careful inquiry, that Egerton was--whispering."
A shout of laughter from Olympus proclaimed that the message had been
delivered. The Caterpillar had saved the situation.
John became a disciple of this accomplished young gentleman and tried
to imitate him. For Egerton represented, faithfully enough, traditions
to which John bowed the knee. Upon any point of schoolboy honour his
authority ruled supreme. He told the truth among his peers; he loathed
obscenity; he disliked and condemned bad language.
"The best men don't swear much," he would say. "It's doosid bad form. I
allow myself a 'damn' or two, nothing more. My great-grandfather, who
was one of the Regency lot, was known as Cursing Egerton, but nowadays
we leave that sort of thing to bargees."
Quite unconsciously, John assimilated the Caterpillar's axioms.
"We're not sent here at enormous expense to learn only Latin and Greek.
At Harrow and Eton one is licked into shape for the big things:
diplomacy, politics, the Services. One is taught manners, what? I'm not
a marrying sort of man, but if I do have sons I shall send 'em here,
even if I have to pinch a bit."
This was the side of Egerton which appealed so strongly to John. The
Caterpillar was an Harrovian to the core, like the Duffer and Caesar
Desmond. He deplored the increasing predominance of sons of very rich
men. And he anathematized Harrovian fathers who were persuaded by
Etonian wives to send their sons to the Plain instead of to the Hill.
That some of the famous Harrow families, who owed so much to the School,
should forsake it, seemed to Egerton the unpardonable sin.
During this term, regretfully must it be recorded that John scamped his
"prep" and "ragged" in form whenever a suitable chance presented itself.
The Duffer and he bribed a "Chaw"[15] to throw gravel against the
windows of the room where the boys were supposed to be mastering the
problems of Euclid and algebra. The "tique"[16] master had been Third
Wrangler, but he couldn't tackle his Division properly. Upon this
occasion the "chaw" created such a disturbance that (on audacious
demand) leave was granted to the Duffer and John to capture the
offender. The young rascals pursued the "chaw" as far as the
Metropolitan Station, and presented that conscientious youth with
another sixpence. Then it occurred to John that it might be expedient to
capture some bogus prisoner; so by means of talk, sugared with
chocolates, they persuaded a little girl to impersonate the thrower of
gravel. The little girl, carefully coached in her part, was led to the
Wrangler, but stage-fright made her burst into tears at the critical
moment. Somehow or other the truth leaked out; the Duffer and John were
sent up to the Head Master and "swished." Each collected a few twigs of
the birch, carefully preserved to this day.
Meantime, the Torpid house-matches were coming on, and the School
agreed, wonderingly, that Dirty Dick's had a chance of being cock-house.
The fact that the Manor has lost caste brought about this possibility.
Boys just under fifteen found room at the Manor when other houses were
full. All the Manorites in the Shell and Removes were fellows who had
come to Harrow rather over than under fourteen years of age.
And when the list of the Torpid Eleven was posted, didn't John's heart
boil with pride when he read his own name at the bottom of it?
The Manor won the first and the second of the matches. Then came the
semi-final, with Damer's. When the teams met in the playing-fields the
difference in the size of the players was remarked. Damer's Torpids were
small boys, not much bigger than John or the Duffer. But they had behind
them that stupendous force which is fashioned out of pride, _esprit de
corps_, self-confidence begotten of long-continued success, and,
strongest of all, the conviction that every man-Jack would fight till he
dropped for the honour and glory of the crack house at Harrow. Not a boy
in Damer's team was Scaife's equal as a player, but in Scaife's
strength lay the weakness of the Manorites. They relied upon one player;
Damer's pinned faith to eleven.
As it happened to be a fine day, the School turned out in force to
witness the match. Most of the masters were present, and some ladies.
Rutford, however, had business elsewhere. The School commented upon his
absence with sly smiles and shrugs of the shoulder. Some of the
Manorites were indifferent; the better sort raged. The Caterpillar
appeared upon the ground in a faultless overcoat, carrying a large bag
of lemons. His straw hat was cocked at a slight angle.
"One is really uncommonly obliged to Dirty Dick for staying away," he
told everybody. "Speaking personally, the mere sight of him is very
upsetting to me. Keen as one feels about this match, one can't deny that
there is not room in a footer field for Dirty Dick and a self-respecting
person."
None the less, the absence of their house-master had a bad effect upon
the Torpids. Damer, you may be sure, had come down, prepared to cheer
louder than any boy in his house; Damer, it was whispered, had been
known to shed tears when his house suffered defeat; Damer, in fine,
inspired ardours--a passion of endeavour.
Scaife won the toss and kicked off.
For the first five minutes nothing of interest happened. Damer's played
collectively; the Manorites rather waited upon the individual. When
Scaife's chance came, so it was predicted, he would go through the
Damer's centre as irresistibly as a Russian battleship cuts through a
fleet of fishing-smacks.
Rutford being absent, Dumbleton, the butler, stood well to the fore. He
never missed a house-match, and no one could guess, looking at his
wooden countenance, how the game was going; for he accepted either
defeat or victory with a dignified self-restraint. A smart bit of work
provoked a bland, "Well played, sir, _very well_ played, sir!" uttered
in the same respectful tone in which he requested Lovell, let us say, to
go to Mr. Rutford's study after prayers. The fags believed that
"Dumber," who had begun his career as boot-boy at the Manor in the
glorious days of old, had given notice to leave when he learned that
Dirty Dick was about to assume command; but had been prevailed upon to
stay by the promise of an enormous salary. Nothing disturbed his
equanimity. On the previous Saturday evening, John had heated the wrong
end of the poker in No. 15, knowing that Dumber's duty constrained him
to march round the House after "lights out," to rake out any fires that
might be still burning. Snug under his counterpane, the practical joker
awaited, chuckling, a choleric word from the impassive and impeccable
butler. How did Dumber divine that the poker was unduly hot and black
with soot underneath? Who can answer that question? The fact remains
that he seized John's best Sunday trousers which were laid out on a
chair, and holding the poker with these, accomplished his task without
remark or smile. The trousers had to be sent to the tailor's to be
cleaned.
Not far from Dumber stood a group of small boys, including the unhappy
Fluff--unhappy because he was not playing, despite arduous training
(entirely to please John) and systematic coaching. His failure meant
further separation from John, whom, it will be remembered, he would have
been allowed to call by his Christian name, had he been included amongst
the Torpids. Of late, Fluff had not seen much of John, and in his dark
hours he allowed his thoughts to linger, not unpleasantly sometimes,
upon premature death and John's subsequent remorse.
Meantime, Scaife and Desmond were playing a furious game which must have
proved successful had it not been for the admirable steadiness of the
enemy. Lawrence watched their efforts with compressed lips and frowning
brows. He knew--who better?--that his cracks were tearing themselves to
tatters; but his protests were drowned by the shrill cheers of the
fags.
"Rutfords--Rutfor-r-r-r-r-ds! Go it, old Demon!--Jolly well played,
Caesar!--Sky him![17]--Well skied, sir!--Ah-h-h-h! Well given--well
taken!"
The last, long-drawn-out exclamation proclaimed that "Yards"[18] had
been given to Scaife right in front of Damer's base. Damer's retreated;
Scaife, with heaving chest, balanced the big ball between the tips of
his fingers.
"Oh-h-h-h-h!"
Scaife had missed an easy shot. Lawrence could see that the boy was
trembling with disappointment and mortification. Barbed arrows from
Damer's small boys pierced Manorite hearts.
"Jolly well boshed, Scaife!--Good, kind, old Demon!--Thank you,
Scaife!--" and like derisive approbation rolled from lip to lip. The
Caterpillar turned to Lovell.
"Showing temper, ain't he?"
"Yes," said Lovell.
"Clever chap," said the Caterpillar, reflectively; "but one is reminded
that a stream can't rise higher than its source. Not mine that--the
governor's! Caesar is facing the chaff with a grin."
The game began again. But soon it became evident that Scaife had lost,
not only his temper, but his head. He rushed here and there with so
little judgment that the odds amongst the sporting fellows went to six
to four against the Manor. At the beginning of the game they were six to
four the other way. And, inevitably, Scaife's wild and furious efforts
unbalanced Desmond's play. Both boys were out of their proper places to
the confusion of the rest of the team. Within half an hour Damer's had
scored two bases to nothing.
The Caterpillar distributed halves of lemons. Lawrence went up to
Scaife. The captain of the Torpids was standing apart, not far from
Desmond, who was sucking a lemon with a puzzled expression. Gallant,
sweet-tempered, and always hopeful, Caesar could not understand his
friend's passion of rage and resentment. With the tact of his race,
however, he held aloof, smiling feebly, because he had sworn to himself
not to frown. Had he looked to his right, he would have seen John, also
sucking a lemon, but understudying his idol's nonchalant attitude and
smile. John was sensible of an overpowering desire to fling himself upon
the ground and howl. Instead he sucked his lemon, stared at Desmond, and
smiled--valiantly.
"Scaife," said Lawrence, gravely, "you're not playing the game."
Scaife scowled. "I only know I've half killed myself," he muttered.
Lawrence continued in the same steady voice, "Yes; because you missed an
easy base which has happened to me and every other player scores of
times. Come here, Desmond."
Desmond joined them. Lawrence's face brightened when he saw hopeful eyes
and a gallant smile.
"You don't despair?"
"We'll knock 'em into smithereens yet."
"That's the Harrow spirit, but temper your determination to win with a
little common sense. You've overdone it, both of you. Take my tip:
they'll play up like blazes. Defend your own base; and then, when
they're spent, trample on 'em."
"Thank you," said Desmond.
Scaife nodded sulkily.
None the less he had too great respect for Lawrence's ability and
experience as a captain to disregard his advice. After the kick-off,
Damer's _did_ play up, and the Manor had to defend its base against
sustained and fierce attack. Again and again a third base was almost
kicked, again and again superior weight prevailed in the scrimmages.
Within ten minutes Damer's were gasping and weary. And then, the ball
was forced out of the scrimmage and kicked to the top side, Desmond's
place in the field. Comparatively fresh, seeing the glorious
opportunity, grasping it, hugging it, Caesar swooped on the ball. He had
the heels of any boy on the opposite side. Down the field he sped,
faster and faster, amid the roars of the School, roars which came to his
ears like the deep booming of breakers upon a lee shore. To many of
those watching him, the sight of that graceful figure, that shining,
ardent face, revealing the promise which youth and beauty always offer
to a delighted world, became an ineffaceable memory. Damer turned to the
Head of his house.
"And Desmond ought to be one of _us_," he groaned.
And now Caesar had passed all forwards. If he keeps his wits a base is
certain. The full back alone lies between him and triumph. But this is
the moment, the psychological moment, when one tiny mistake will prove
irrevocable. The Head of Damer's whispers as much to Damer, who smiles
sadly.
"His father's son will not blunder now," he replies.
Nor does he. The mistake--for mistake there must be on one side or
t'other--is made by Damer's back. As the ball rolls halfway between
them, the back hesitates and falters.
One base to two--and eighteen minutes to play!
The second base was kicked by Scaife five minutes later.
By this time the School knew that they were looking on at a cock-house
match, not a semi-final. It was the wealth of Dives against the widow's
mite that the winner of this match would defeat easily either of the two
remaining houses. And not a man or boy on the ground could name with any
conviction the better eleven. The betting languished at evens.
Moreover, both sides were playing "canny," risking nothing, nursing
their energies for the last furious five minutes. Damer began to fidget;
than he dropped out of the front rank of spectators. He couldn't stand
still to see his boys win--or lose. He paced up and down behind the
fags, who winked at each other.
"Damer's got the needle," they whispered.
Dumbleton, however, stood still; a graven image of High Life below
Stairs.
"What do you think, Dumber?" asked Fluff.
"I think, my lord," replied Dumber, solemnly, "that every minute
improves our chance, but if it goes on _much_ longer," he added
phlegmatically, "I shall fall down dead. My 'eart's weak, my lord."
This was an ancient joke delivered by Dumber as if it were brand-new,
and received by the fags in a like spirit.
"Bless you, you've got no heart, Dumber. It's turned into tummy long
ago," or, in scathing accents, "It's not your heart that's out of whack,
Dumber, but your blithering old headpiece. What a pity you can't buy a
new one!" and so on and so forth.
Very soon, however, this chaff ceased. Excitement began to shake the
spectators. They felt it up and down their spinal columns; it formed
itself into lumps in their throats; it gave one or two cramp in the
calves of their legs; it reddened many cheeks and whitened as many more.
The Caterpillar pulled out his watch.
"Three and a half minutes," he announced in a voice which fell like the
crack of doom upon the silent crowd. If they could have cheered or
chaffed! But the absolute equality of the last desperate struggle
prevented any demonstration. The ball was worried through a scrimmage,
escaped to the right, slid out to the left, only to be returned whence
it came. It seemed as if both sides were unable to kick it, and when
kicked it seemed to refuse to move as if weighted by the ever-increasing
burden of suspense....
"Now--now's your chance!" yelled the Manorites. To their flaming senses
the ball appeared to be lying, a huge blurred sphere, upon the muddy
grass; and the Elevens were stupidly staring at it. The Saints be
praised! Some fellow can move. Who is it? The players, big and little,
are so daubed with mud from head to foot as to be unrecognizable.
Ah-h-h! It's young Verney.
"Good kid! Well played--I say, well played, well pla-a-a-a-yed!"
Our John has, it seems, distinguished himself. He has charged valiantly
into the captain of Damer's at the moment when that illustrious chief is
about to kick the ball to a trusted lieutenant on the left. He succeeds
in kicking the ball into John's face. John goes over backwards; but the
ball falls just in front of the Duffer.
"Kick it, Duffer--kick it, you old ass!"
The Duffer kicks it most accurately, kicks it well out to the top side.
Now, can Desmond repeat his amazing performance? Yes--No--he can't. The
conditions are no longer the same. Half a dozen fellows are between him
and the Damer base.
Alas! The Manor is about to receive a second object-lesson upon the
fatuity of trusting to individuals. Confident in Caesar's ability to take
the ball at least within kicking distance of the base, they have rushed
forward, leaving unguarded their own citadel. Caesar, going too fast,
misjudges the distance between himself and the back. A second later the
ball is well on its way to the Manor's base. The back awaits it, coolly
enough; knowing that Damer's forwards are offside. Then he kicks the
sodden, slippery ball--hard. An exclamation of horror bursts from the
Manorites. Their back has kicked the ball straight into the hands of the
Damerite captain, the steadiest player on the ground.
"_Yards!_"
The chief collects himself for a decisive effort, and then despatches
the ball straight and true for the target.
* * * * *
It passed between the posts within forty-five seconds of time.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] The "barmaid" collar is the double collar, at that time just coming
into fashion.
[15] "Chaw," short for Chawbacon.
[16] "Tique," ab. for arithmetic. "Tique-beaks" are mathematical
masters.
[17] To "sky," _i.e._ to charge and overthrow.
[18] In the Harrow game a boy may turn and kick the ball into the hands
of one of his own side. The boy who catches it calls "Yards!" and, the
opposite side withdrawing three yards, the catcher is allowed a free
kick.
CHAPTER V
_Fellowship_
"Fellowship is Heaven, and the lack of it is Hell."
John was squelching through the mud, wondering whether his nose was
broken or not, when Lawrence touched his shoulder.
"Never mind, Verney," he said cheerily; "the Manor will be cock-house at
Torpids next year, and I venture to prophesy that you'll be Captain."
"Oh, thanks, Lawrence," said John.
But, much as he appreciated this tribute from the great man, and much as
it served to mitigate the pangs of defeat, a yet happier stroke of
fortune was about to befall him. Desmond, who always walked up from the
football field with Scaife, conferred upon John the honour of his
company.
"Where's Scaife?" said John.
"The Demon is demoniac," said Desmond. "He's lost his hair, and he
blames me. Well, I did my best, and so did he, and there's no more to be
said. It's a bore that we shall be too old to play next year. I told the
Demon that if we had to be beaten, I would sooner take a licking from
Damer's than any other house; and he told me that he believed I wanted
'em to win. When a fellow's in that sort of blind rage, I call him
dotty, don't you?"
"Yes," said John.
"You played jolly well, Verney; I expect Lawrence told you so."
"He did say something decent," John replied.
The Caterpillar joined them as they were passing through the stile. "We
should have won," he said deliberately, "if the Demon hadn't behaved
like a rank outsider."
"Scaife is my pal," said Desmond, hotly.
The Caterpillar shrugged his shoulders, and held high his well-cut,
aquiline nose, as he murmured--
"One doesn't pretend to be a Christian, but as a gentleman one accepts a
bit of bad luck without gnashing one's teeth. What? That Spartan boy
with the fox was a well bred 'un, you can take my word for it. Scaife
isn't."
The Caterpillar joined another pair of boys before Desmond could reply.
John looked uncomfortable. Then Desmond burst out with Irish vehemence--
"Egerton is always jawing about breeding. It's rather snobbish. I don't
think the worse of Scaife because his grandfather carried a hod. The
Egertons have been living at Mount Egerton ever since they left Mount
Ararat, but what have they done? And he ought to make allowances for the
old Demon. He was simply mad keen to win this match, and he has a
temper. You like him, Verney, don't you?"
John hesitated, realizing that to speak the truth would offend the one
fellow in the school whom he wished to please and conciliate. Then he
blurted out--
"No--I don't."
"You don't?" Desmond's frank, blue eyes, Irish eyes, deeply blue, with
black lashes encircling them, betrayed amazement and curiosity--so John
thought--rather than anger. "You don't?" he continued. "Why not? The old
Demon likes you; he says you got him out of a tight place. Why don't you
like him, Verney?"
John's mind had to speculate vaguely whether or not Desmond knew the
nature of the tight place--_tight_ was such a very descriptive
adjective--out of which he had pulled Scaife. Then he said nervously--
"I don't like him because--because he likes--you."
"Likes me? What a rum 'un you are, Verney! Why shouldn't he like me?"
"Because," said John, boldly meeting the emergency with the conviction
that he had burnt his ships, and must advance without fear, "because
he's not half good enough for you."
Desmond burst out laughing; the clear, ringing laugh of his father,
which had often allayed an incipient mutiny below the gangway, and
charmed aside the impending disaster of a snatch-division. And it is on
_one's own side_ in the House of Commons that good temper tells
pre-eminently.
"Not good enough for me!" he repeated. "Thanks awfully. Evidently you
have a high opinion of--_me_."
"Yes," said John.
The quiet monosyllable, so soberly, so seriously uttered, challenged
Desmond's attention. He stared for a moment at John's face--not an
attractive object. Blood and mud disfigured it. But the grey eyes met
the blue unwaveringly. Desmond flushed.
"You've stuck me on a sort of pedestal." His tone was as serious as
John's.
"Yes," said John.
They were opposite the Music Schools. The other Manorites had run on.
For the moment they stood alone, ten thousand leagues from Harrow, alone
in those sublimated spaces where soul meets soul unfettered by flesh.
Afterwards, not then, John knew that this was so. He met the real
Desmond for the first time, and Desmond met the real John in a
thoroughfare other than that which leads to the Manor, other than that
which leads to any house built by human hands, upon the shining highway
of Heaven.
Shall we try to set down Desmond's feelings at this crisis? Till now,
his life had run gaily through fragrant gardens, so to speak:
pleasaunces full of flowers, of sweet-smelling herbs, of stately trees,
a paradise indeed from which the ugly, the crude, the harmful had been
rigorously excluded. Happy the boy who has such a home as was allotted
to Harry Desmond! And from it, ever since he could remember, he had
received tender love, absolute trust, the traditions of a great family
whose name was part of English history, an exquisite refinement, and
with these, the gratification of all reasonable desires. And this
magnificent upbringing shone out of his radiant face, the inexpressible
charm of youth unspotted--white. Scaife's upbringing, of which you shall
know more presently, had been far different, and yet he, the cynic and
the unclean, recognized the God in Harry Desmond. He had not, for
instance, told Desmond of the nature of that "tight" place; he had kept
a guard over his tongue; he had interposed his own strong will between
his friend and such attention as a boy of Desmond's attractiveness might
provoke from Lovell senior and the like. It is true that Scaife was well
aware that without these precautions he would have lost his friend; none
the less, above and beyond this consciousness hovered the higher, more
subtle intuition that the good in Desmond was something not lightly to
be tampered with, something awe-inspiring; the more so because, poor
fellow! he had never encountered it before.
Desmond stood still, with his eyes upon John's discoloured face. Not the
least of Caesar's charms was his lack of self-consciousness. Now, for the
first time, he tried to see himself as John saw him--on a pedestal. And
so strong was John's ideal that in a sense Desmond did catch a glimpse
of himself as John saw him. And then followed a rapid comparison, first
between the real and the ideal, and secondly between himself and Scaife.
His face broke into a smile.
"Why, Verney," he exclaimed, "you mustn't turn me into a sort of Golden
Calf. And as for Scaife not being good enough for me, why, he's miles
ahead of me in everything. He's cleverer, better at games, ten thousand
times better looking, and one day he'll be a big power, and I shall
always be a poor man. Why, I--I don't mind telling you that I used to
keep out of Scaife's way, although he was always awfully civil to me,
because he has so much and I so little."
"He's not half good enough for you," repeated John, with the Verney
obstinacy. Unwittingly he slightly emphasized the "good."
"Good? Do you mean 'pi'? He's not _that_, thank the Lord!"
This made John laugh, and Desmond joined in. Now they were Harrow boys
again, within measurable distance of the Yard, although still in the
shadow of the Spire. The Demon described as "pi" tickled their ribs.
"You must learn to like the Demon," Desmond continued, as they moved on.
Then, as John said nothing, he added quickly, "He and I have made up our
minds not to try for remove this term. You see, next term is the
jolliest term of the year--cricket and 'Ducker'[19] and Lord's. And we
shall know the form's swat thoroughly, and have time to enjoy ourselves.
You'll be with us. Your remove is a 'cert'--eh?"
John beamed. He had made certain that Caesar would be in the Third Fifth
next term and hopelessly out of reach.
"Oh yes, I shall get my remove. So will the Caterpillar."
"Hang the Caterpillar," said Desmond.
"He'd ask for a silken rope, as Lord Ferrers did," said John, with one
of his unexpected touches of humour. Again Desmond bent his head in the
gesture John knew so well, and laughed.
"I say, Verney, you _are_ a joker. Well, the old Caterpillar's a good
sort, but he's not fair to Scaife. Here we are!"
They ran upstairs to "tosh" and change. John found the Duffer just
slipping out of his ducks. He looked at John with a rueful grin.
"Are you going to chuck me?" he asked.
"Chuck you?"
"Fluff says you've chucked him. He was in here a moment ago to ask if
your nose was squashed. I believe the silly little ass thinks you the
greatest thing on earth."
"I don't chuck anybody," said John, indignantly. And he made a point of
asking Fluff to walk with him on Sunday.
After the Torpid matches the school settled down to train (more or less)
for the athletic sports. John came to grief several times at Kenton
brook, essaying to jump it at places obviously--as the Duffer pointed
out--beyond his stride. The Duffer and he put their names down for the
house-handicaps, and curtailed their visits to the Creameries. After
this self-denial it is humiliating to record that neither boy succeeded
in winning anything. Caesar won the house mile handicap; Scaife won the
under sixteen high jump--a triumph for the Manor; and Fluff, the
despised Fluff, actually secured an immense tankard, which one of the
Sixth offered as a prize because he was quite convinced that his own
particular pal would win it. The distance happened to be half a mile.
Fluff was allowed an enormous start and won in a canter.
The term came to an end soon after these achievements, and John spent a
week of the holidays at White Ladies, the Duke of Trent's Shropshire
place. Here, for the first time, he saw that august and solemn
personage, a Groom of the Chambers, with carefully-trimmed whiskers, a
white tie, a silky voice, and the appearance of an archdeacon. This
visit is recorded because it made a profound impression upon a plastic
mind. John had never sat in the seats of the mighty. Verney Boscobel was
a delightful old house, but it might have been put, stables and all,
into White Ladies, and never found again. Fluff showed John the famous
Reynolds and Gainsborough portraits, the Van Dycks and Lelys, the
Romneys and Richmonds. Fair women and brave men smiled or frowned at our
hero wherever he turned his wondering eyes. After the first tour of the
great galleries, he turned to his companion.
"I say," he whispered solemnly, "some of 'em look as if they didn't like
my calling you--Fluff."
"I wish you'd call me Esme."
"All right," said John, "I will; and--er--although you didn't get into
the Torpids, you can call me--John."
"Oh, John, thanks awfully."
Ponies were provided for the boys to ride, and they shot rabbits in the
Chase. Also, they appeared at dinner, a tremendous function, and were
encouraged by some of the younger guests to spar (verbally, of course)
with the duke's Etonian sons. Fluff looked so much stronger and happier
that his parents, delighted with their experiment, were inclined to cry
up the Hill, much to the exasperation of the dwellers in the Plain.
When he left White Ladies John had learned one valuable lesson. His
sense of that hackneyed phrase, _noblesse oblige_, the sense which
remains nonsense with so many boys (old and young), had been quickened.
Little more than a child in many ways, he realized, as a man does, the
true significance of rank and wealth. The Duke of Trent had married a
pleasure-loving dame; White Ladies was essentially a pleasure-house, to
which came gladly enough the wit and beauty of the kingdom. And yet the
duke, not clever as compared to his guests, not even good-looking as
compared to the splendid gentlemen whom Van Dyck and Lely had painted,
_undistinguished_, in fine, in everything save rank and wealth, worked,
early and late, harder than any labourer upon his vast domain. And when
John said to Fluff, "I say, Esme, why does the duke work so beastly
hard?" Fluff replied with emphasis, "Why, because he has to, you know.
It's no joke to be born a duke, and I'm jolly glad that I'm a younger
son. Father says that he has no amusements, but plenty of occupation.
Mother says he's the unpaid land-agent of the Trent property."
John went back to Verney Boscobel, and repeated what Fluff had said, as
his own.
"It was simply splendid, mum, like a sort of castle in fairyland and all
that, but I _am_ glad I'm not a duke. And I expect that even an earl has
a lot of beastly jobs to do which never bother _us_."
"Oh, you've found that out, have you, John? Well, I hesitated when the
invitation came; but I'm glad now that you went."
"Yes; and it's ripping to be home again."
* * * * *
The summer term began in glorious sunshine; and John forgot that he
owned an umbrella. The Caterpillar and he had achieved their remove, but
the unhappy Duffer was left behind alone with the hideous necessity of
doing his form's work by himself. The boys occupied the same rooms, but
John prepared his Greek and Latin with Scaife, Caesar, and the
Caterpillar; whom he was now privileged to call by their nick-names.
They began to call him John, hearing young Kinloch do so; and then one
day, Scaife, looking up with his derisive smile, said--
"I'm going to call you Jonathan."
"Good," said Desmond. "All the same, we can't call either the Duffer or
Fluff--David, can we?"
"I was not thinking of Kinloch or Duff," said Scaife, staring hard at
John. And John alone knew that Scaife read him like a book, in which he
was contemptuously amused--nothing more. After that, as if Scaife's will
were law, the others called John--Jonathan.
Very soon, the sun was obscured by ever-thickening clouds. John happened
to provoke the antipathy of a lout in his form known as Lubber Sprott.
Sprott began to persecute him with a series of petty insults and
injuries. He accused him of "sucking up" to a lord, of putting on "lift"
because he was the youngest boy in the Upper Remove, of kow-towing to
the masters--and so forth. Then, finding these repeated gibes growing
stale, he resorted to meaner methods. He upset ink on John's books, or
kicked them from under his arm as he was going up to the New Schools.
He put a "dringer"[20] into the pocket of John's "bluer."[21] He pinched
him unmercifully if he found himself next to John in form, knowing that
John would not betray him. When occasion offered he kicked John. In
short, he was successful in taking all the fun and sparkle out of the
merrie month of May.
Finally, Caesar got an inkling of what was going on.
"Is Sprott ragging you?" he asked point-blank.
"Ye-es," said John, blushing. "It's n-nothing," he added nervously.
"He'll get tired of it, I expect."
"I saw him kick you," said Desmond, frowning. "Now, look here, Jonathan,
you kick him; kick him as hard as ever you can where, where he kicks
you--eh? And do it to-morrow in the Yard, at nine Bill, when everybody
is looking on. You can dodge into the crowd; but if I were you I'd kick
him at the very moment he gets into line, and then he can't pursue. And
if he does pursue--which I'll bet you a bob he don't, he'll have to
tackle you and me."
"I'll do it," said John.
Next day, a whole holiday, at nine Bill, both Caesar and John were
standing close to the window of Custos' den, waiting for Lubber Sprott
to appear. While waiting, an incident occurred which must be duly
chronicled inasmuch as it has direct bearing upon this story. Only the
week before Rutford had come up to the Yard late for Bill, he being the
master whose turn it was to call over. Such tardiness, which happens
seldom, is reckoned as an unpardonable sin by Harrow boys. Briefly it
means that six hundred suffer from the unpunctuality of one. Therefore,
when Rutford appeared, slightly flushed of countenance and visibly
annoyed, the School emphasized their displeasure by derisive cheers.
Rutford, ever tactless where boys were concerned, was unwise enough to
make a speech from the steps condemning, in his usual bombastic style, a
demonstration which he ought to have known he was quite powerless to
punish or to prevent. When he had finished, the School cheered more
derisively than before. After Bill, he left the Yard, purple with rage
and humiliation.
Upon this particular morning, one of the younger masters, Basil Warde,
was calling Bill. The School knew little of Warde, save that he was an
Old Harrovian in charge of a Small House, and that his form reported
him--_queer_. He had instituted a queer system of punishments, he made
queer remarks, he looked queer: in fine, he was generally regarded as a
radical, and therefore a person to be watched with suspicion by boys
who, as a body, are intensely conservative. He was of a clear red
complexion with lapis-lazuli blue eyes, that peculiar blue which is the
colour of the sea on a bright, stormy day. The Upper School knew that,
as a member of the Alpine Club, Warde had conquered half a dozen
hitherto unconquerable peaks.
Into the Yard and into this book Warde comes late. As he hurried to his
place, the School greeted him as they had greeted Rutford only the week
before. If anything, the demonstration was slightly more hostile. That
Bill should be delayed twice within ten days was unheard-of and
outrageous. When the hoots and cheers subsided, Warde held up his hand.
He smiled, and his chin stuck out, and his nose stuck up at an angle
familiar to those who had scaled peaks in his company. In silence, the
School awaited what he had to say, hoping that he might slate them,
which would afford an excuse for more ragging. Warde, guessing, perhaps,
the wish of the crowd, smiled more genially than before. Then, in a
loud, clear voice, he said--
"I beg pardon for being late. And I thank you for cheering me. I haven't
been cheered in the Yard since the afternoon when I got my Flannels."
A deafening roar of applause broke from the boys. Warde might be queer,
but he was a good sort, a gentleman, and, henceforward, popular with
Harrovians.
He began to call over as Lubber Sprott neared the place where Desmond
and John awaited him. The Lubber took up his position near the boys,
turning a broad back to them. He stood with his hands in his pockets,
talking to another boy as big and stupid as himself. The Lubber, it may
be added, ought to have worn "Charity" tails, but he had not applied for
permission to do so. He was fat and gross rather than tall, and
certainly too large for his clothes.
"Now," said Caesar.
John measured the distance with his eye, as Caesar thoughtfully nudged
other members of the Upper Remove. John had room for a very short run.
The Lubber was swaying backwards and forwards. John timed his kick,
which for a small boy he delivered with surprising force, so accurately
that the Lubber fell on his face. The boys looking on screamed with
laughter. The Lubber, picking himself up (John dodged into the crowd,
who received him joyfully) and glaring round, encountered the
contemptuous face of Desmond.
"Let me have a shot," said Caesar.
The Lubber advanced, spluttering with rage.
"Where is he--where is he, that infernal young Verney?"
By this time fifty boys at least were interested spectators of the
scene. Desmond stood square in the Lubber's path.
"You like to kick small boys," said Caesar, in a very loud voice. "I'm
small, half your size, why don't you kick me?"
The Lubber could have crushed the speaker by mere weight; but he
hesitated, and the harder he stared at Desmond the less he fancied the
job of kicking him. Quality confronted quantity.
"Kick me," said Desmond, "if--if you dare, you big, hulking coward and
cad!"
"Come on, Lubber, get into line!" shouted some boy.
Sprott turned slowly, glancing over his vast, fat shoulder to guard
against further assault. Then he took his place in the line, and passed
slowly out of the Yard and out of these pages. He never persecuted John
again.[22]
Not yet, however, was the sun to shine in John's firmament. As the days
lengthened, as June touched all hearts with her magic fingers,
insensibly relaxing the tissues and warming the senses, John became more
and more miserably aware that, in the fight between Scaife and himself
for the possession of Desmond, the odds were stupendously against him.
Truly the Demon had the subtlety of the serpent, for he used the
failings which he was unable to hide as cords wherewith to bind his
friend more closely to him. When the facts, for instance, of what had
taken place in Lovell's room came to Desmond's ears, he denied fiercely
the possibility of Scaife, his pal, making a "beast" of himself. The
laughter which greeted his passionate protest sent him hot-foot to
Scaife himself.
"They say," panted Caesar, "that last winter you were dead drunk in
Lovell's room. I told the beasts they lied."
Scaife's handsome face softened. Was he touched by Caesar's loyalty? Who
can tell? Always he subordinated emotion to intelligence: head commanded
heart.
"Perhaps they did," he answered steadily; "and perhaps they didn't. I
deny nothing; I admit nothing. But"--his fine eyes, so dark and
piercing, flamed--"Caesar, if I was dead drunk at your feet now, would
you turn away from me, would you chuck me?"
Desmond winced. Scaife pursued his advantage.
"If you _are_ that sort of a fellow--the Pharisee"--Desmond winced
again--"the saint who is too pure, too holy, to associate with a
sinner, say so, and let us part here--and now. For I _am_ a--sinner. You
are not a sinner. Hold hard! let me have my say. I've always known that
this moment was coming. Yes, I am a sinner. And my governor is a sinner,
a hardened sinner. His father made our pile by what you would call
robbery. The whole world knows it, and condones it, because we are so
rich. Even my mother----"
He paused, trembling, white to the lips.
"Don't," said Desmond. "Please don't."
"You're right. I won't. But I'm handicapped on both sides. It's only
fair that you should know what sort of a fellow you've chosen for a pal.
And it's not too late to chuck me. Rutford will put Verney in here, if I
ask him. And, by God! I'm in the mood to ask him _now_. Shall I go to
him, Desmond, or shall I stay?"
He had never raised his voice, but it fell upon the sensitive soul of
the boy facing him as if it were a clarion-call to battle.
Desmond sprang forward, ardent, eager, afire with generous
self-surrender.
"Forgive me," he cried. "Oh, forgive me, because I can't forgive
myself!"
After this breaking of barriers, Scaife took less pains to disguise a
nature which turned as instinctively to darkness as Desmond's to light.
A score of times protest died when Scaife murmured, "There I go again,
forgetting the gulf between us"; and always Desmond swore stoutly that
the gulf, if a gulf did yawn between them, should be bridged by
friendship and hope. But, insensibly, Caesar's ideals became tainted by
Scaife's materialism. Scaife, for instance, spent money lavishly upon
"food" and clothes. So far as a Public Schoolboy is able, he never
denied his splendid young body anything it coveted. Desmond, too proud
to receive favours without returning them, tried to vie with this
reckless spendthrift, and found himself in debt. In other ways a keen
eye and ear would have marked deterioration. John noticed that Caesar
laughed, although he never sneered, at things he used to hold sacred;
that he condemned, as Scaife did, whatever that clever young reprobate
was pleased to stigmatize as narrow-minded or intolerant.
Cricket, however, kept them fairly straight. Each was certain to get his
"cap,"[23] if, as Lawrence told them, they stuck to the rigour of the
game. This was Lawrence's last term. He had stayed on to play at Lord's,
and when he left Trieve would become the Head of the House--a prospect
very pleasing to the turbulent Fifth.
About the middle of June John suffered a parlous blow. He was never so
happy as when he was sitting in Scaife's room, cheek by jowl with
Desmond, sharing, perhaps, a "dringer," poring over the same dictionary.
This delightful intimacy came to a sudden end in this wise. The
form-master of the Upper Remove happened to be a precisian in English. A
sure road to his favour was the right use of a word. The Demon,
appreciating this, bought a dictionary of synonyms, and made a point of
discarding the commonplace and obvious, substituting a phrase likely to
elicit praise and marks. Desmond and John joined in this hunt of the
right word with enthusiasm.
One evening the four boys encountered the simple sentence--"_majoris
pretii quam quod aestimari possit_."
"'Priceless''ll cover that," said Caesar.
"Or 'inest_ee_mable,'" said the Demon.
The three other boys stared at the Demon, and then at each other. The
Caterpillar, something of a purist in his way, drawled out--
"One pronounces that 'inestimable.'"
"My father doesn't," said Scaife, hotly. "I've heard him say
'inesteemable.'"
"No doubt," said Egerton, coldly. "How does _your_ father pronounce it,
Caesar?"
Desmond said hurriedly, "Oh, 'inestimable'; but what does it matter?"
The Demon sprang up, furious. "It matters this," he cried. "I'm d----d
if I'll have Egerton sitting in my room sneering at my governor. After
this he'll do his work in his own room, or I'll do mine in the passage."
Before Desmond could speak, Scaife had whirled out of the room, slamming
the door. John looked stupefied with dismay.
The Caterpillar shrugged his shoulders. Then he said slowly--
"Scaife's father pronounces 'connoisseur' 'connoysure,' and so does
Scaife."
Desmond stood up, flushed and distressed, but emphatic.
"Scaife is right about one thing," he said. "He won't sit here like a
cad and listen to Egerton sneering at his father. I'm very sorry, but
after this we'd better split up. Verney and you, Egerton; and Scaife and
I."
"Certainly," said the Caterpillar, rising in his turn.
Poor John cast a distracted and imploring glance at Desmond, which
flashed by unheeded. Then he got up, and followed the Caterpillar out of
the room. The passage was empty.
The Caterpillar sniffed as if the atmosphere in Scaife's room had been
polluted.
"One has nothing to regret," he remarked. "Scaife has good points,
and--er--bad. You've noticed his hands--eh! _Very_ unfinished! And his
foot--short, but broad." The Caterpillar surveyed his long, slender feet
with infinite satisfaction; then he added, with an accent of finality,
"Scaife talks about going into the Grenadiers; but they'll give him a
hot time there, a very hot time. One is really sorry for the poor
fellow, because, of course, he can't help being a bounder. What does
puzzle me is, why did Caesar want such a fellow for his pal?"
"But he didn't," said John.
"Eh?--what?"
"Scaife wanted Caesar," John explained. "And I've noticed, Caterpillar,
that whatever Scaife wants he gets."
"He wants breeding, Jonathan, but he'll never get that--never."
After this, John saw but little of Desmond; and Scaife hardly spoke to
him. Accordingly, much of our hero's time was spent in the company of
the Duffer and Fluff. The three passed many delightful hours together at
"Ducker." Armed with buns and chocolate, they would rush down the hill,
bathe, lie about on the grass, eat the buns, and chaff the kids who were
learning to swim.
"Long, long, in the misty hereafter
Shall echo, in ears far away,
The lilt of that innocent laughter,
The splash of the spray."
During the School matches they spent the afternoons on the Sixth Form
ground, carefully criticizing every stroke. The theory of the game lay
pat to the tongue, but in practice John was a shocking bungler. At his
small preparatory school in the New Forest, he had not been taught the
elementary principles of either racquets or cricket; but he had a good
eye, played a capital game of golf, rode and shot well for a small boy.
Fluff, although still delicate, gave promise of being a cricketer as
good, possibly, as his brothers, when he became stronger.
Upon Speech Day John's mother and uncle came down to Harrow, and you may
be sure that John escorted them in triumph to the Manor. Mrs. Verney has
since confessed that John's expression as she greeted him surprised and
distressed her. He looked quite unhappy. And the dear woman, thinking
that he must be in debt, seriously considered the propriety of tipping
him handsomely _in advance_. A moment later, as she slipped out of an
old and shabby dust-cloak, revealing the splendours of a dress fresh
from Paris, she divined from John's now radiant face what had troubled
him.
"John," she said, "you didn't really think that I was going to shame you
by wearing this dreadful cloak--did you?"
"I wasn't quite sure," John answered; then he burst out, "Mum, you look
simply lovely. All the fellows will take you for my sister."
And after the great function in Speech-room came the cheering. How
John's heart throbbed when the Head of the School, standing just outside
the door, proclaimed the illustrious name--
"Three cheers for Mr. John Verney."
And how the boys in the road below cheered, as the little man descended
the steps, hat in hand, bowing and blushing! Everybody knew that he was
on the eve of departure for further explorations in Manchuria. He would
be absent, so the papers said, three years at least. The School cheered
the louder, because each boy knew that they might never see that gallant
face again.
Later in the afternoon a selection of Harrow songs was given in the
Speech-room. "Five Hundred Faces," as usual, was sung by a new boy, who
is answered, in chorus, by the whole School. How John recalled his own
feelings, less than a year ago, as he stood shivering upon the bank of
the river, funking the first plunge! And his uncle, now sitting beside
him, had said that he would soon enjoy himself amazingly--and so he had!
The new boy began the second verse. His voice, not a strong one,
quavered shrilly--
"A quarter to seven! There goes the bell!
The sleet is driving against the pane;
But woe to the sluggard who turns again
And sleeps, not wisely, but all too well!"
In reply to the weak, timid notes came the glad roar of the School--
"Yet the time may come, as the years go by,
When your heart will thrill
At the thought of the Hill,
And the pitiless bell, with its piercing cry!"
Ah, that pitiless bell! And yet because of it one wallowed in Sunday and
whole-holiday "frowsts."[24] John, you see, had the makings of a
philosopher. And now the Eleven were grunting "Willow the King." And
when the last echo of the chorus died away in the great room, Uncle John
whispered to his nephew that he had heard Harrow songs in every corner
of the earth, and that convincing proof of merit shone out of the fact
that their charm waxed rather than waned with the years; they improved,
like wine, with age.
Caesar's father came down with the Duke of Trent. The duke tipped John
magnificently and asked him to spend his exeat at Trent House, and to
witness the Eton and Harrow match at Lord's from the Trent coach. John
accepted gratefully enough; but his heart was sore because, just before
the row over that infernal word "inestimable," Caesar had asked John if
he would like to occupy an attic in Eaton Square. After the row nothing
more was said about the attic; but John would have preferred bare boards
in Eaton Square to a tapestried chamber in Park Lane.
Now, during the whole of this summer term there was much animated
discussion in regard to the rival claims of lines or spots upon the
white waistcoat worn by all self-respecting Harrovians at Lord's. Upon
this important subject John had betrayed scandalous indifference.
Accordingly, just before the match, the Caterpillar took him aside and
spoke a solemn word.
"Look here," he said; "one doesn't as a rule make personal remarks, but
it's rather too obvious that you buy your clothes in Lyndhurst. I was
sorry to see that the Duke of Trent was the worst-dressed man at
Speecher; but a duke can look like a tinker, and nobody cares."
"I'd be awfully obliged if you'd tell me what's wrong," said John,
humbly.
"Everything's wrong," said the Caterpillar, decisively. He looked
critically at John's boots. "Your boots, for instance--most excellent
boots for wading through the swamps in the New Forest, but quite
impossible in town. And the 'topper' you wear on Sunday! Southampton,
you say? Ah, I thought it was a Verney heirloom. Now, it wouldn't
surprise me to hear that your mother, who dresses herself quite
charmingly, bought your kit."
"She did," John confessed.
"Just so. One need say no more. Now, you come along with me."
They marched down the High Street to the most fashionable of the School
tailors, where John was measured for an Eton jacket of the best, white
waistcoat with blue spots, light bags; while the Caterpillar selected a
new "topper," an umbrella, a pair of gloves, and a tie.
"Be _very_ careful about the bags," said the Caterpillar. "They are
cutting 'em in town a trifle tighter about the lower leg, but loose
above. You understand?"
"Perfectly, Mr. Egerton," replied the obsequious snip. "What we call the
'tighto-looso' style, sir."
"I don't think they call it that in Savile Row," said the Caterpillar;
"but be careful."
The tailor was assured that he would receive an order properly signed by
Mr. Rutford. And then John was led to the bootmaker's, and there
measured for his first pair of patent-leathers. The Caterpillar was so
exhausted by these labours that a protracted visit to the Creameries
became imperative.
"You've always looked like a gentleman," said the Caterpillar, after his
"dringer," "and it's a comfort to me to think that now you'll be dressed
like one."
So John went up to town looking very smart indeed; and Fluff (who had
ordered a similar kit) whispered to John at luncheon that his brothers,
the Etonians, had expressed surprise at the change for the better in
their general appearance.
This luncheon was eaten on the top of the duke's coach, and it happened
that the next coach but one belonged to Scaife's father. John could just
see Scaife's handsome head, and Caesar sitting beside him. The boys
nodded to each other, and the Etonians asked questions. At the name of
Scaife, however, the young Kinlochs curled contemptuous lips.
"Unspeakable bounder, old Scaife, isn't he?" they asked; and the duchess
replied--
"My dears, his cheques are honoured to any amount, even if _he_ isn't."
Her laughter tinkled delightfully; but John reflected that Desmond was
eating the Scaife food and drinking the Scaife wine--all bought with
ill-gotten gold.
Later in the afternoon it became evident that the Scaife champagne was
flowing freely. To John's dismay, the Harrovians (including Caesar) on
the top of the Scaife coach became noisy. The Caterpillar and his
father, Colonel Egerton, sauntered up, and were invited by the duke to
rest and refresh themselves. John was amused to note that the colonel
was even a greater buck than his son. He quite cut out the poor old
Caterpillar, challenging and monopolizing the attention of all who
beheld him.
"Those boys are makin' the devil of a row," said the colonel, fixing his
eyeglass. "Ah, the Scaifes! A man I know dined with them last week. He
reported everything _over_done, except the food. Their _chef_ is
Marcobruno, you know."
Presently, to John's relief, Desmond left the Scaifes and joined the
Trent party, upon whom his gay, radiant face and charming manners made a
most favourable impression. He laughed at the duchess's stories, and
made love to her quite unaffectedly. The Etonians looked rather glum,
because their wickets were falling faster than had been expected.
Desmond told the duke, in answer to a question, that his father was in
his seat in the pavilion, with his eyes glued to the pitch.
"He's awfully keen," said Caesar.
"You boys are not so keen as we were," said the duke, nodding
reflectively.
"Oh, but we are, sir--indeed we are," said Caesar. "Aren't we,
Caterpillar?"
The Caterpillar replied, thoughtfully, "One bottles up that sort of
thing, I suppose."
"Ah," said the duke, kindly, "if it's the right sort of thing, it's none
the worse for being bottled up."
The boys went to the play that night and enjoyed themselves hugely. Next
day, however, the match ended in a draw. John was standing on the top of
the coach, very disconsolate, when he saw Desmond beckoning to him from
below. The expression on Caesar's face puzzled him.
"How can you pal up with those Etonians?" whispered Caesar, after John
had descended. "Every Eton face I see now I want to hit." Then he added,
with a smile and a chuckle, "I say, there's going to be a ruction in
front of the Pavvy. Come on."
A minute later John was in the thick of a very pretty scrimmage between
the Hill and the Plain. Hats were bashed in; cornflowers torn from
buttonholes; pale-blue tassels were captured; umbrellas broken. Finally,
the police interfered.
"Short, but very, very sweet," said Caesar, panting.
John and he were lamentable objects for fond parents to behold, but the
sense of depression had vanished. And then Caesar said suddenly--
"By Jove! I _have_ got a bit of news. It quite takes the sting out of
this draw."
"What's happened?"
"My governor has been talking with Warde. Rutford is leaving Harrow."
John gasped. "That is ripping."
"Isn't it? But who do you think is coming to us? Why, Warde himself. He
was at the Manor when it was _the_ house, and the governor says that
Warde will make it _the_ house, again. He's got his work cut out for
him--eh?"
"You bet your life," said John.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] "Duck-Puddle," the school bathing-place.
[20] A "Dringer" is composed of the following ingredients: a layer of
strawberries is secreted in sugar and cream at the bottom of a clean
jam-pot; and this receives a decent covering of strawberry ice, which
brings the surface of the dringer and the top edge of the jam-pot into
the same plane. The whole may be bought for sixpence. (P. C. T., 1905.)
[21] A "Bluer" is the blue-flannel jacket worn in the playing fields. It
must be worn _buttoned_ by boys who have been less than three years in
the school.
[22] Small boys are not advised to copy John's tactics. The victory is
not always to the weak.
[23] The house-cap, only worn by members of the House Cricket Eleven.
[24] Lying in bed in the morning when there is no First School is a
"frowst." By a subtle law of association, an armchair is also a
"frowst."
CHAPTER VI
_A Revelation_
"Forty years on, when afar and asunder
Parted are those who are singing to-day,
When you look back, and forgetfully wonder
What you were like in your work and your play;
Then, it may be, there will often come o'er you
Glimpses of notes like the catch of a song,--
Visions of boyhood shall float them before you,
Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along."
Before the end of the summer term, both Desmond and Scaife received
their "caps" and a word of advice from Lawrence.
"There are going to be changes here," said he; "and I wish I could see
'em, and help to bring 'em about. Now, I'm not given to buttering
fellows up, but I see plainly that the rebuilding of this house depends
a lot upon you two. It's not likely that you're able to measure your
influence; if you could, there wouldn't be much to measure. But take it
from me, not a word, not an action of yours is without weight with the
lower boys. Everything helps or hinders. Next term there will be war--to
the knife--between Warde and some fellows I needn't name, and Warde will
win. Remember I said so. I hope you," he looked hard at Desmond, "will
fight on the right side."
The boys returned to their room, jubilant because the house-cap was
theirs, but uneasy because of the words given with it. As soon as they
were alone, Scaife said sullenly--
"Does Lawrence expect us to stand in with Warde against Lovell and his
pals? If he does, he's jolly well mistaken, as far as I'm concerned."
Desmond flushed. He had spent nearly five terms at Harrow, but only two
at the Manor. Of what had been done or left undone by certain fellows in
the Fifth he was still in twilight ignorance. He discerned shadows,
nothing more, and, boylike, he ran from shadows into the sunlight.
Desmond knew that there were beasts at the Manor. Had you forced from
him an expression approaching, let us say, definiteness, he would have
admitted that beasts lurked in every house, in every school in the
kingdom. You must keep out of their way (and ways)--that was all. And he
knew also that too many beasts wreck a house, as they wreck a regiment
or a nation.
But once or twice within the past few months he had suspected that his
cut-and-dried views on good and evil were not shared by Scaife. Scaife
confessed to Desmond that the Old Adam was strong in him. He liked,
craved for, the excitement of breaking the law. Hitherto, this breaking
of the law had been confined to such offences as smoking or drinking a
glass of beer at a "pub,"[25] or using cribs, or, generally speaking,
setting at naught authority. That Scaife had escaped severe punishment
was due to his keen wits.
Now, when Scaife gave Desmond the unexpurgated history of the row which
so nearly resulted in the expulsion of six boys, Desmond had asked a
question--
"Do you _like_ whisky? I loathe it."
Scaife laughed before he answered. Doubtless one reason why he exacted
interest and admiration from Desmond lay in a rare (rare at fifteen)
ability to analyse his own and others' actions.
"I loathe it, too," he admitted. "Really, you know, we drank precious
little, because it _is_ such beastly stuff. But I liked, we all liked,
to believe that we were doing the correct thing--eh? And it warmed us
up. Just a taste made the Caterpillar awfully funny."
"I see."
"Do you see? I doubt it, Caesar. Perhaps I shall horrify you when I tell
you that vice interests me. I used to buy the _Police News_ when I was a
kid, and simply wallow in it. I told a woman that last Easter, and she
laughed--she was as clever as they make 'em--and said that I suffered
from what the French call _la nostalgie de la boue_; that means, you
know, the homesickness for the gutter. Rather personal, but dev'lish
sharp, wasn't it?"
"I think she was a beast."
"Not she, she's a sort of cousin; she came from the same old place
herself; that's why she understood. You don't want to know what goes on
in the slums, but I do. Why? Because my grand-dad was born in 'em."
"He pulled himself out by brains and muscles."
"But he went back--sometimes. Oh yes, he did. And the governor--I'm up
to some of _his_ little games. I could tell you----"
"Oh--shut up!" said Caesar, the colour flooding his cheeks.
Upon the last Saturday of the term the School Concert took place. Few of
the boys in the Manor, and none out of it, knew that John Verney had
been chosen to sing the treble solo; always an attractive number of the
programme. John, indeed, was painfully shy in regard to his singing, so
shy that he never told Desmond that he had a voice. And the
music-master, enchanted by its quality, impressed upon his pupil the
expediency of silence. He wished to surprise the School.
The concerts at Harrow take place in the great Speech-room. Their
characteristic note is the singing of Harrow songs. To any boy with an
ear for music and a heart susceptible of emotion these songs must appeal
profoundly, because both words and music seem to enshrine all that is
noble and uplifting in life. And, sung by the whole School (as are most
of the choruses), their message becomes curiously emphatic. The spirit
of the Hill is acclaimed, gladly, triumphantly, unmistakably, by
Harrovians repeating the creed of their fathers, knowing that creed will
be so repeated by their sons and sons' sons. Was it happy chance or a
happier sagacity which decreed that certain verses should be sung by the
School "Twelve," who have struggled through form after form and know
(and have not yet had time to forget) the difficulties and temptations
which beset all boys? They, to whom their fellows unanimously accord
respect at least, and often--as in the case of a Captain of the Cricket
Eleven--enthusiastic admiration and fealty; these, the gods, in a word,
deliver their injunction, transmit, in turn, what has been transmitted
to them, and invite their successors to receive it. To many how poignant
must be the reflection that the trust they are about to resign might
have been better administered! But to many there must come upon the
wings of those mighty, rushing choruses the assurance that the Power
which has upheld them in the past will continue to uphold them in the
future. In many--would one could say in all--is quickened, for the first
time, perhaps, a sense of what they owe to the Hill, the overwhelming
debt which never can be discharged.
Desmond sat beside Scaife. Scaife boasted that he could not tell "God
save the Queen" from "The Dead March in Saul." He confessed that the
concert bored him. Desmond, on the other hand, was always touched by
music, or, indeed, by anything appealing to an imagination which gilded
all things and persons. He was Scaife's friend, not only (as John
discovered) because Scaife had a will strong enough to desire and secure
that friendship, but because--a subtler reason--he had never yet seen
Scaife as he was, but always as he might have been.
Desmond told Scaife that he could not understand why John had bottled up
the fact that he was chosen to sing upon such an occasion. Scaife smiled
contemptuously.
"You never bottle up anything, Caesar," said he.
"Why should I? And why should he?"
"I expect he'll make an awful ass of himself."
"Oh no, he won't," Desmond replied. "He's a clever fellow is Jonathan."
As he gave John his nickname, Desmond's charming voice softened. A boy
of less quick perceptions than Scaife would have divined that the
speaker liked John, liked him, perhaps, better than he knew. Scaife
frowned.
"There are several Old Harrovians," he said, indicating the seats
reserved for them. "It's queer to me that they come down for this
caterwauling."
Desmond glanced at him sharply, with a wrinkle between his eyebrows. For
the moment he looked as if he were short-sighted, as if he were trying
to define an image somewhat blurred, conscious that the image itself was
clear enough, that the fault lay in the obscurity of his own vision.
"They come down because they're keen," he replied. "My governor can't
leave his office, or he'd be here. I like to see 'em, don't you, Demon?"
"I could worry along without 'em," the Demon replied, half-smiling. "You
see," he added, with the blend of irony and pathos which always
captivated his friend, "you see, my dear old chap, I'm the first of my
family at Harrow, and the sight of all your brothers and uncles and
fathers makes me feel like Mark Twain's good man, rather _lonesome_."
At once Desmond responded, clutching Scaife's arm.
"You're going to be Captain of the cricket and footer Elevens, and
School racquet-player, and a monitor; and after you leave you'll come
down here, and you'll see that Harrow hasn't forgotten you, and then
you'll know why these fellows cut engagements. My governor says that an
hour at a School Concert is the finest tonic in the world for an Old
Harrovian."
"Oh, shut up!" said Scaife; "you make me feel more of an outsider than
good old Snowball." He glanced at a youth sitting close to them.
Snowball was as black as a coal: the son of the Sultan of the Sahara.
"Yes, Caesar, you can't get away from it, I _am_ an 'alien.'"
"You're a silly old ass! I say, who's the guest of honour?"
Next to the Head Master was sitting a thin man upon whose face were
fixed hundreds of eyes. The School had not been told that a famous Field
Marshal, the hero of a hundred fights, was coming to the concert. And,
indeed, he had accepted an invitation given at the last moment--accepted
it, moreover, on the understanding that his visit was to be informal.
None the less, his face was familiar to all readers of illustrated
papers. And, suddenly, conviction seized the boys that a conqueror was
among them, an Old Etonian, making, possibly, his first visit to the
Hill. Scaife whispered his name to Desmond.
"Why, of course," Desmond replied eagerly. "How splendid!"
He leaned forward, devouring the hero with his eyes, trying to pierce
the bronzed skin, to read the record. From his seat upon the stage John,
also, stared at the illustrious guest. John was frightfully nervous, but
looking at the veteran he forgot the fear of the recruit. Both Desmond
and he were wondering what "it felt like" to have done so much.
And--they compared notes afterwards--each boy deplored the fact that the
great man was not an Old Harrovian. There he sat, cool, calm, slightly
impassive. John thought he must be rather tired, as a man ought to be
tired after a life of strenuous endeavour and achievement. He had
done--so John reflected--an awful lot. Even now, he remained the active,
untiring servant of Queen and country. And he had taken time to come
down to Harrow to hear the boys sing. And, dash it all! he, John, was
going to sing to him.
At that moment Desmond was whispering to Scaife--
"I say, Demon; I'm jolly glad that I've not got to sing before _him_. I
bet Jonathan is in a funk."
"A big bit of luck," replied Scaife, reflectively. Then, seeing the
surprise on Desmond's face, he added, "If Jonathan can sing--and I
suppose he can, or he wouldn't be chosen--this is a chance----"
"Of what?"
"Caesar, sometimes I think you've no brains. Why, a chance of attracting
the notice of a tremendous swell--a man, they say, who never
forgets--never! Jonathan may want a commission in the Guards, as I do;
and if he pleases the great man, he may get it."
"Jonathan's not thinking of that," said Desmond. "Shush-h-h!"
The singers stood up. They faced the Field Marshal, and he faced them.
He looked hardest at Lawrence, pointed out to him by the Head Master.
Perhaps he was thinking of India; and the name of Lawrence indelibly cut
upon the memories of all who fought in the Mutiny. And Lawrence, you may
be sure, met his glance steadily, being fortified by it. The good fellow
felt terribly distressed, because he was leaving the Hill; and, being a
humble gentleman, the old songs served to remind him, not of what he had
done, but of what he had left undone--the words unspoken, the actions
never now to be performed. The chief caught his eye, smiled, and nodded,
as if to say, "I claim your father's son as a friend."
When the song came to an end, John was seized with an almost
irresistible impulse to bolt. His turn had come. He must stand up to
sing before nearly six hundred boys, who would stare down with gravely
critical and courteously amused eyes. And already his legs trembled as
if he were seized of a palsy. John knew that he could sing. His mother,
who sang gloriously, had trained him. From her he had inherited his
vocal chords, and from her he drew the knowledge how to use them.
When he stood up, pale and trembling, the silence fell upon his
sensibilities as if it were a dense, yellow fog. This silence, as John
knew, was an unwritten law. The small boy selected to sing to the
School, as the representative of the School, must have every chance. Let
his voice be heard! The master playing the accompaniment paused and
glanced at his pupil. John, however, was not looking at him; he was
looking within at a John he despised--a poltroon, a deserter about to
run from his first engagement. He knew that the introduction to the song
was being played a second time, and he saw the Head Master whispering to
his guest. Paralysed with terror, John's intuition told him that the
Head Master was murmuring, "That's the nephew of John Verney. Of course
you know him?" And the Field Marshal nodded. And then he looked at John,
as John had seen him look at Lawrence, with the same flare of
recognition in the steel-grey eyes. Out of the confused welter of faces
shone that pair of eyes--twin beacons flashing their message of
encouragement and salvation to a fellow-creature in peril--at least, so
John interpreted that piercing glance. It seemed to say, far plainer
than words, "I have stood alone as you stand; I have felt my knees as
wax; I have wished to run away. But--_I didn't_. Nor must you. Open your
mouth and sing!"
So John opened his mouth and sang. The first verse of the lyric went
haltingly.
Scaife growled to Desmond, "He _is_ going to make an ass of himself."
And Desmond, meeting Scaife's eyes, half thought that the speaker wished
that John would fail--that he grudged him a triumph. None the less, the
first verse, sung feebly, with wrong phrasing and imperfect
articulation, revealed the quality of the boy's voice; and this quality
Desmond recognized, as he would have recognized a fine painting or a bit
of perfect porcelain. All his short life his father had trained him to
look for and acclaim quality, whether in things animate or inanimate. He
caught hold of Scaife's arm.
"Make an ass of himself!" he whispered back. "Not he. But he may make an
ass of me."
Even as he spoke he was aware that tears were horribly near his eyes.
Some catch in John's voice, some subtle inflection, had smitten his
heart, even as the prophet smote the rock.
"Rot!" said Scaife, angrily.
He was angry, furiously angry, because he saw that Caesar was beyond his
reach, whirled innumerable leagues away by the sound of another's voice.
John had begun the second verse. He stared, as if hypnotized, straight
into the face of the great soldier, who in turn stared as steadily at
John; and John was singing like a lark, with a lark's spontaneous
delight in singing, with an ease and self-abandonment which charmed eye
almost as much as ear. Higher and higher rose the clear, sexless notes,
till two of them met and mingled in a triumphant trill. To Desmond, that
trill was the answer to the quavering, troubled cadences of the first
verse; the vindication of the spirit soaring upwards unfettered by the
flesh--the pure spirit, not released from the pitiful human clay without
a fierce struggle. At that moment Desmond loved the singer--the singer
who called to him out of heaven, who summoned his friend to join him, to
see what he saw--"the vision splendid."
John began the third and last verse. The famous soldier covered his face
with his hand, releasing John's eyes, which ascended, like his voice,
till they met joyfully the eyes of Desmond. At last he was singing to
his friend--_and his friend knew it_. John saw Desmond's radiant smile,
and across that ocean of faces he smiled back. Then, knowing that he was
nearer to his friend than he had ever been before, he gathered together
his energies for the last line of the song--a line to be repeated three
times, loudly at first, then more softly, diminishing to the merest
whisper of sound, the voice celestial melting away in the ear of
earth-bound mortals. The master knew well the supreme difficulty of
producing properly this last attenuated note; but he knew also that
John's lungs were strong, that the vocal chords had never been strained.
Still, if the boy's breath failed; if anything--a smile, a frown, a
cough--distracted his attention, the end would be--weakness, failure. He
wondered why John was staring so fixedly in one direction.
Now--now!
The piano crashed out the last line; but far above it, dominating it,
floated John's flute-like notes. The master played the same bars for the
second time. He was still able to sustain, if it were necessary, a
quavering, imperfect phrase. But John delivered the second repetition
without a mistake, singing easily from the chest. The master put his
foot upon the soft pedal. Nobody was watching him. Had any one done so,
he would have seen the perspiration break upon the musician's forehead.
The piano purred its accompaniment. Then, in the middle of the phrase,
the master lifted his hands and held them poised above the instrument.
John had to sing three notes unsupported. He was smiling and staring at
Desmond. The first note came like a question from the heart of a child;
the second, higher up, might have been interpreted as an echo to the
innocent interrogation of the first, the head no wiser than the heart;
but the third and last note had nothing in it of interrogation: it was
an answer, all-satisfying--sublime. Nor did it seem to come from John at
all, but from above, falling like a snowflake out of the sky.
And then, for one immeasurable moment--_silence_.
John slipped back to his seat, crimson with bashfulness, while the
School thundered applause. The Field Marshal shouted "Encore," as loudly
as any fag; but the Head Master whispered--
"We don't encourage _encores_. A small boy's head is easily turned."
"Not his," the hero replied.
Two numbers followed, and then the School stood up, and with them all
Old Harrovians, to sing the famous National Anthem of Harrow, "Forty
Years on." Only the guests and the masters remained seated.
"Forty years on, growing older and older,
Shorter in wind, as in memory long,
Feeble of foot and rheumatic of shoulder,
What will it help you that once you were strong?
God give us bases to guard or beleaguer,
Games to play out, whether earnest or fun;
Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager,
Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on!
Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up!
Till the field ring again and again,
With the tramp of the twenty-two men.
Follow--up!"
As the hundreds of voices, past and present indissolubly linked
together, imposed the mandate, "_Follow up!_" the Head Master glanced at
his guest, but left unsaid the words about to be uttered. Tears were
trickling down the cheeks of the man who, forty years before, had won
his Sovereign's Cross--For Valour.
* * * * *
After the concert, but before he left the Speech-room, the Field Marshal
asked the Head Master to introduce Lawrence and John, and, of course,
the Head of the School. When John came up, there was a twinkle in the
veteran's eye.
"Ha--ha!" said he; "you were in a precious funk, John Verney."
"I was, sir," said John.
"Gad! Don't I know the feeling? Well, well," he chuckled, smiling at
John, "you climbed up higher than I've ever been in my life. What was
it--hey? 'F' in 'alt'?"
"'G,' sir."
"You sang delightfully. Tell your uncle to bring you to see me next time
you are in town. You must consider me a friend," he chuckled again--"an
old friend. And look ye here," his pleasant voice sank to a whisper, "I
daren't tip these tremendous swells, but I feel that I can take such a
liberty with you. Shush-h-h! Good-bye."
John scurried away, bursting with pride, feeling to the core the strong
grip of the strong man, hearing the thrill of his voice, the thrill
which had vibrated in thousands of soldier-hearts. Outside, Fluff was
awaiting him.
"Oh, Jonathan, you can sing, and no mistake."
"Five--six--seven mistakes," John answered.
The boys laughed.
John told Fluff what the hero had said to him, and showed the piece of
gold.
"What ho! The Creameries! Come on, Esme."
At the Creameries several boys congratulated John, and the Caterpillar
said--
"You astonished us, Jonathan; 'pon my soul you did. Have a 'dringer'
with me? And Fluff, too? By the way, be sure to keep your hair clipped
close. These singing fellows with manes may be lions in their own
estimation, but the world looks upon 'em as asses."
"That's not bad for you, Caterpillar," said a boy in the Fifth.
"Not my own," said the Caterpillar, solemnly--"my father's. I take from
him all the good things I can get hold of."
John polished off his "dringer," listening to the chaff, but his
thoughts were with Desmond. He had an intuition that Desmond would have
something to say to him. As soon as possible he returned to the Manor.
There he found his room empty. John shut the door and sat down, looking
about him half-absently. The Duffer had not contributed much to the
mural decoration, saying, loftily, that he preferred bare walls to
rubbishy engravings and Japanese fans. But, with curious inconsistency
(for he was the least vain of mortals), he had bought at a "leaving
auction" a three-sided mirror--once the property of a great buck in the
Sixth. The Duffer had got it cheap, but he never used it. The lower boys
remarked to each other that Duff didn't dare to look in it, because what
he would see must not only break his heart but shatter the glass.
Generally, it hung, folded up, close to the window, and the Duffer said
that it would come in handy when he took to shaving.
John's eye rested on this mirror, vacantly at first, then with gathering
intensity. Presently he got up, crossed the room, opened the two
folding panels, and examined himself attentively, pursing up his lips
and frowning. He could see John Verney full face, three-quarter face,
and half-face. And he could see the back of his head, where an obstinate
lock of hair stuck out like a drake's tail. John was so occupied in
taking stock of his personal disadvantages that a ringing laugh quite
startled him.
"Why, Jonathan! Giving yourself a treat--eh?"
John turned a solemn face to Desmond. "I think my head is hideous," he
said ruefully.
"What do you mean?"
"It's too long," John explained. "I like a nice round head like yours,
Caesar. I wish I wasn't so ugly."
Desmond laughed. John always amused him. Caesar was easily amused, saw
the funny side of things, and contrasts tickled his fancy agreeably. But
he stopped laughing when he realized that John was hurt. Then, quickly,
impulsively, he said--
"Your head is all right, old Jonathan. And your voice is simply
beautiful." He spoke seriously, staring at John as he had stared in the
Speech-room when John began to sing. "I came here to tell you that. I
felt odd when you were singing--quite weepsy, you know. You like me, old
Jonathan, don't you?"
"Awfully," said John.
"Why did you look at me when you sang that last verse? Did you know that
you were looking at me?"
"Yes."
"You looked at me because--well, because--bar chaff--you--liked--me?"
"Yes."
"You--you like me better than any other fellow in the school?"
"Yes; better than any other fellow in the world."
"Is it possible?"
"I have always felt that way since--yes--since the very first minute I
saw you."
"How rum! I've forgotten just where we did meet--for the first time."
"I shall never forget," said John, in the same slow, deliberate fashion,
never taking his eyes from Desmond's face. Ever since he had sung, he
had known that this moment was coming. "I shall never forget it," he
repeated--"never. You were standing near the Chapel. I was poking about
alone, trying to find the shop where we buy our straws. And I was
feeling as all new boys feel, only more so, because I didn't know a
soul."
"Yes," said Desmond, gravely; "you told me that. I remember now; I
mistook you for young Hardacre."
"You smiled at me, Caesar. It warmed me through and through. I suppose
that when a fellow is starving he never forgets the first meal after
it."
"I say. Go on; this is awfully interesting."
"I can remember what you wore. One of your bootlaces had burst----"
"Well; I'm----"
"I had a wild sort of wish to run off and buy you a new lace----"
"Of all the rum starts I----"
"Afterwards," John continued, "I tried to suck-up. I asked you to come
and have some 'food.' Do you remember?"
"I'll bet I came, Jonathan."
"No; you didn't. You said 'No.'"
"Dash it all! I certainly said, 'No thanks.'"
"I dare say; but the 'No' hurt awfully because I did feel that it was
cheek asking you."
"Jonathan, you funny old buster, I'll never say 'No' again. 'Pon my
word, I won't. So I said 'No.' That's odd, because it's not easy for me
to say 'No.' The governor pointed that out last hols. Somehow, I can't
say 'No,' particularly if there's any excitement in saying 'Yes.' And my
beastly 'No' hurt, did it? Well, I'm very, _very_ sorry."
He held out his hand, which John took. Then, for a moment, there was a
pause before Desmond continued awkwardly--
"You know, Jonathan, that the Demon is my pal. You like him better than
you did, don't you?"
John had the tact not to speak; but he shook his head dolefully.
"And I couldn't chuck him, even if I wanted to, which I don't--which I
don't," he repeated, with an air of satisfying himself rather than John.
And John divined that Scaife's hold upon Desmond's affections was not so
strong as he had deemed it to be. Desmond continued, "But I want you,
too, old Jonathan, and if--if----"
"All right," said John, nobly. He perceived that Desmond's loyalty to
Scaife made him hesitate and flush. "I understand, Caesar, and if I can't
be first, let me be second; only, remember, with me you're first, rain
or shine."
Desmond looked uneasy. "Isn't that a case of 'heads I win, tails you
lose'?"
John considered; then he smiled cheerfully, "You know you are a winner,
Caesar. You're cut out for a winner; you can win whatever you want to
win."
"Oh, that's all rot," said Desmond. He looked very grave, and in his
eyes lay shadows which John had never seen before.
And so ended John's first year at Harrow.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] All Public Houses are out of bounds.
CHAPTER VII
_Reform_
"'It must be a gran' thing to be a colledge profissor.'
"'Not much to do,' said Mr. Hennessy.
"'But a gr--reat deal to say,' said Mr. Dooley."
When John returned to the Hill at the beginning of the winter term the
great change had taken place. Rutford had assumed the duties of
Professor of Greek at a Scotch University; Warde was in possession of
the Manor; Scaife and Desmond and John--but not the Caterpillar--had got
their remove. They were Fifth Form boys--and in tails! John, it is true,
although tougher and broader, was still short for his years and juvenile
of appearance, but Scaife and Desmond were quite big fellows, and their
new coats became them mightily. Trieve was Head of the House; Lovell,
Captain of the House football Eleven and in the Lower Sixth.
"Lovell will have to behave himself now," the Duffer remarked to Scaife,
who laughed derisively, as he answered--
"He couldn't, even if he tried."
Warde welcomed the House at lock-up, and introduced the boys to his wife
and daughter. Mrs. Warde had a plain, pleasant face. Miss Warde,
however, was a beauty, and she knew it, the coquette, and had known it
from the hour she could peep into a mirror. The Caterpillar pronounced
her "fetching." Being only fifteen, she wore her hair in a plait tied by
a huge bow, and the hem of her skirt barely touched the neatest ankle on
Harrow Hill. Give her a saucy, pink-and-white face, pop a pert,
tip-tilted nose into the middle of it just above a pouting red mouth,
and just below her father's lapis-lazuli eyes, and you will see Iris
Warde. Her hair was reddish, not red--call it warm chestnut; and she had
a dimple.
After the introductions, mother and daughter left the hall. Warde stood
up, inviting the House to sit down. Warde was about half the width of
the late Rutford, but somehow he seemed to take up more room. He had
spent the summer holidays in Switzerland, climbing terrific peaks. Snow
and sun had coloured his clear complexion. John, who saw beneath tanned
skins, reflected that Warde seemed to be saturated with fresh air and
all the sweet, clean things which one associates with mountains. "He
loves hills," thought John, "and he loves our Hill." Warde began to
speak in his jerky, confidential tones. Dirty Dick had always been
insufferably dull, pompous, and didactic.
"I don't like speechmaking," said Warde, "but I want to put one thing to
you as strongly as a man may. I have always wished to be master of the
Manor. Some men may think mine a small ambition. Master of a house at
Harrow? Nothing big about that. Perhaps not. But I think it big. And it
is big--for me. Understand that I'm in love with my job--head over
heels. I'd sooner be master of the Manor than Prime Minister. I couldn't
tackle his work. Enough of that. Now, forget for a moment that I'm a
master. Let me talk as an Old Harrovian, an old Manorite who remembers
everything, ay--everything, good and bad. Some lucky fellows remember
the good only; we call them optimists. Others remember the bad.
Pessimists those. Put me between the two. The other day I had an eye,
_one_ eye, fixed on the top of a certain peak--by Jove! how I longed to
reach that peak!--but the other eye was on a _crevasse_ at my feet. Had
I kept both eyes on the peak, I should be lying now at the bottom of
that _crevasse_. You take me? Well, twenty years ago I sat here, in
hall, my last night in the old house, and I hoped that one day I might
come back. Why? This is between ourselves, a confidence. I came to the
Manor from a beastly school, such schools are hardly to be found
nowadays--a hardened young sinner at thirteen. The Manor licked me into
shape. Speaking generally, I suppose the tone of the house insensibly
communicated itself to me. The Manor was cock-house at games and work. I
began by shirking both. But the spirit of the Hill was too much for me.
I couldn't shirk that. Some jolly old boys, we all know them and like
them, are always saying that their early school-days were the happiest
of their lives. They're fond of telling this big lie just as they're
settling down to their claret. I really believe that they believe what
they say, but it _is_ a lie. The smallest boy here knows it's a lie.
Let's hark back a bit. I said I was licked into shape--and I mean
_licked_. I had a lot of really hard fagging--much harder than any of
you boys know--I was sent up and swished, I had whoppings innumerable,
and it wasn't pleasant. My mother had pinched herself to send me here,
because my father had been here before me; and I wondered why she did
it. At that time I couldn't see why cheaper schools shouldn't be not
only as good as Harrow, but perhaps better. Not till I was in the Fifth
did I get a glimmering of what my mother and the Manor were doing for
me. When I got into the Sixth and into the Eleven, I knew. And my last
year here made up, and more, too, for the previous four. I enjoyed that
year thoroughly; I had ceased to be a slacker. I tell you, all of you,
that happiness, like liberty, must be earned before we can enjoy it. And
you are sent here to earn it. I'm not going to keep you much longer. I
have come to the marrow of the matter. I owe the Manor a debt which I
hope to pay to--you. Just as you, in turn, will pay back to boys not yet
born the money your people have gladly spent on you, and other greater
things besides. I want to see this house at the top of the tree again:
cock-house at cricket, cock-house at footer, with a Balliol Scholar in
it, and a school racquet-player. And now Dumbleton is going to bring in
a little champagne. We'll drink high health and fellowship to the Manor
and the Hill!"
His face broke into the smile his form knew so well; he sat down, as the
house roared its welcome to a friend.
As soon as the champagne was drunk ("Dumber" was careful to put more
froth than wine into the glasses of the kids), the boys filed out of the
Hall. The Duffer, Desmond, John, and the Caterpillar assembled in John's
room. Desmond, you may be sure, was afire with resolution. Warde was the
right sort, a clinker, a first flighter. And he meant to stick by him
through thick and thin. John said nothing. The Caterpillar drawled out--
"Warde didn't surprise me--much. I've found out that he's one of the
Wardes of Warde-Pomeroy, the real old stuff. Our families intermarried
in Elizabeth's reign."
"Chance to do it again, Caterpillar," said the Duffer. "Warde's daughter
is an uncommonly pretty girl."
Then the Caterpillar used the epithet "fetching."
"She's fetching, very fetching," he said. "It's a pleasure to remember
that we're of kin. One must be civil to Warde. He's a well bred 'un."
"You think too much of family," said Desmond.
"_One can't_," replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. "One knows that family
is not everything, but, other things being equal, it means refinement.
The first of the Howards was a swineherd, I dare say, but generations of
education, of association with the best, have turned them from
swine-herds into gentlemen, and it takes generations to do it."
"Good old Caterpillar!" said the Duffer.
"Not my own," said the Caterpillar; adding, as usual, "My governor's,
you know."
"Warde hasn't a soft job ahead of him," said Desmond.
"Soft or hard, he'll handle it his own way."
Desmond went out, wondering what had become of Scaife. Scaife was in his
room, talking to Lovell senior, who spent a fortnight with Scaife's
people in Scotland, fishing and grousing. Desmond had been asked also,
but his father, rather to Caesar's disgust (for the Scaife moor was
famous), had refused to let him go. Lovell and Scaife were arguing
about something which Desmond could not understand.
"I left it to my partner," said Scaife, "and the fool went no trumps
holding two missing suits. The enemy doubled, my partner redoubled, and
the others redoubled again: that made it ninety-six a trick. The fellow
on the left held my partner's missing suits; he made the Little Slam,
and scored nearly six hundred below the line. It gave 'em the rubber,
too, and I had to fork out a couple of quid."
"What are you jawing about, Demon?" said Desmond.
"Bridge. It's the new game. It's going to be the rage. Do you play
bridge, Caesar?"
"No. I want to learn it."
"All right, I must teach you."
"We could get up a four in this house," said Lovell. "We three and the
Caterpillar. He plays, I know. The Colonel is one of the cracks at the
Turf. It would be an awful lark. A mild gamble: small points--eh? A bob
a hundred. What do you say, Caesar?"
Desmond hesitated. Bridge had not yet reached its delirious stage. But
Desmond had seen it played, had heard his father praise it as the most
fascinating of card-games, and had determined to learn it at the first
convenient opportunity. None the less Warde's words still echoed in his
ear.
"I think we ought to give Warde a chance," he said.
"You don't mean to say you were taken in by him?" said Lovell,
contemptuously.
Desmond burst into enthusiastic praise of Warde and his methods. Lovell
shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room, nodding to Scaife,
but ignoring Desmond.
"You must go canny with Lovell," said Scaife. "He's the fellow who ought
to give you your 'fez' after the first house-game."
"Never mind that. You won't play bridge, Demon, will you?"
"Why not?" said Scaife. "Where's the harm? Your governor plays----"
"Yes; but----"
"You're afraid of getting sacked?"
"I'm not."
"All right; I'll take that back. You're not a funk, Caesar, but you're so
easily humbugged. Warde caught you with his 'pi jaw' and a glass of
gooseberry."
"The champagne was all right, wasn't it?"
"Oh, ho! So you do mean to stand in with Warde against Lovell and me?
Thanks for being so candid. Now I'll be candid with you. I like Lovell.
There's no nonsense about him. He do
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