CHAPTER I

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TELL ENGLAND

_A Study in a Generation_

By ERNEST RAYMOND

NEW YORK

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

1922

_For all emotions that are tense and strong,

And utmost knowledge, I have lived for these--

Lived deep, and let the lesser things live long,

The everlasting hills, the lakes, the trees,

Who'd give their thousand years to sing this song

Of Life, and Man's high sensibilities,

Which I into the face of Death can sing--

O Death, then poor and disappointed thing--

Strike if thou wilt, and soon; strike breast and brow;

For I have lived: and thou canst rob me now

Only of some long life that ne'er has been.

The life that I have lived, so full, so keen,

Is mine! I hold it firm beneath thy blow

And, dying, take it with me where I go._

CONTENTS

A PROLOGUE BY PADRE MONTY

BOOK I: FIVE GAY YEARS OF SCHOOL

_Part I: Tidal Reaches_

Chapter

I RUPERT RAY BEGINS HIS STORY

II RUPERT OPENS A GREAT WAR

III AWFUL ROUT OF RAY

IV THE PREFECTS GO OVER TO THE ENEMY

V CHEATING

VI AN INTERLUDE

_Part II: Long, Long Thoughts_

VII CAUGHT ON THE BEATEN TRACK

VIII THE FREEDHAM REVELATIONS

IX WATERLOO OPENS

X WATERLOO CONTINUES: THE CHARGE AT THE END OF THE DAY

XI THE GREAT MATCH

XII CASTLES AND BRICK-DUST

BOOK II: AND THE REST--WAR

_Part I: "Rangoon" Nights_

I THE ETERNAL WATERWAY

II PADRE MONTY AND MAJOR HARDY COME ABOARD

III "C. OF E., NOW AND ALWAYS"

IV THE VIGIL

V PENANCE

VI MAJOR HARDY AND PADRE MONTY FINISH THE VOYAGE

_Part II: The White Heights_

VII MUDROS, IN THE ISLE OF LEMNOS

VIII THE GREEN ROOM

IX PROCEEDING FORTHWITH TO GALLIPOLI

X SUVLA AND HELLES AT LAST

XI AN ATMOSPHERE OF SHOCKS AND SUDDEN DEATH

XII SACRED TO WHITE

XIII "LIVE DEEP, AND LET THE LESSER THINGS LIVE LONG"

XIV THE NINETEENTH OF DECEMBER

XV TRANSIT

XVI THE HOURS BEFORE THE END

XVII THE END OF GALLIPOLI

XVIII THE END OF RUPERT'S STORY

TELL ENGLAND

A PROLOGUE BY PADRE MONTY

§1

In the year that the Colonel died he took little Rupert to see the

swallows fly away. I can find no better beginning than that.

When there devolved upon me as a labour of love the editing of

Rupert Ray's book, "Tell England," I carried the manuscript into my

room one bright autumn afternoon, and read it during the fall of a

soft evening, till the light failed, and my eyes burned with the

strain of reading in the dark. I could hardly leave his ingenuous

tale to rise and turn on the gas. Nor, perhaps, did I want such

artificial brightness. There are times when one prefers the

twilight. Doubtless the tale held me fascinated because it revealed

the schooldays of those boys whom I met in their young manhood, and

told afresh that wild old Gallipoli adventure which I shared with

them. Though, sadly enough, I take Heaven to witness that I was not

the idealised creature whom Rupert portrays. God bless them, how

these boys will idealise us!

Then again, as Rupert tells you, it was I who suggested to him the

writing of his story. And well I recall how he demurred, asking:

"But what am I to write about?" For he was always diffident and

unconscious of his power.

"Is Gallipoli nothing to write about?" I retorted. "And you can't

have spent five years at a great public school like Kensingtowe

without one or two sensational things. Pick them out and let us have

them. For whatever the modern theorists say, the main duty of a

story-teller is certainly to tell stories."

"But I thought," he broke in, "that you're always maintaining that

the greatest fiction should be occupied with Subjective Incident."

"Don't interrupt, you argumentative child," I said (you will find

Rupert is impertinent enough in one place to suggest that I have a

tendency to be rude and a tendency to hold forth). "Surely the ideal

story must contain the maximum of Objective Incident with the

maximum of Subjective Incident. Only give us the exciting events of

your schooldays, and describe your thoughts as they happened, and

you will unconsciously reveal what sort of scoundrelly characters

you and your friends were. And when you get to the Gallipoli part,

well, you can give us chiefly your thoughts, for Gallipoli, as far

as dramatic incident is concerned, is well able to shift for

itself."

Little wonder that I was fascinated to read Rupert's final

manuscript. And, when I had finished the last words, I

announced aloud a weighty decision: "We must have a Prologue,

Rupert,"--though, to be sure, my study was empty at the time--"and

it must give pictures of what your three heroes were like, when they

were small, abominable boys."

And thereafter I busied myself in seeking information of the early

childhood of Rupert Ray, Archibald Pennybet, and Edgar Gray Doe. Not

without misgiving do I offer the result of these researches, for I

fear all the time lest my self-conscious hand should profane

Rupert's artless narrative.

In the year that the Colonel died he took little Rupert to see the

swallows fly away. Colonel Ray was a stately, grey-bearded

grandfather; and Rupert his flushed and blue-eyed grandson of six

years old; and the two stood side by side and watched. Behind them

lay the French town, Boulogne; beside them went the waters of the

French river, the Liane. Suddenly Rupert, who had kept his blue eyes

on a sky but little bluer, cried out excitedly: "There they are!"

For him at that moment the most interesting thing in the world was

the flight of swallows overhead. The Colonel, also, looked at the

birds till they were out of sight, and then, after keeping silence

awhile, uttered a remark which was rather sent in pursuit of the

birds than addressed to his young companion. "I shall not see the

swallows again," he said.

Colonel Rupert Ray was no ordinary person. He was one of those of

whom tales are told; and such people are never ordinary. The most

treasured of these tales is the story of the swallows; and it goes

on to tell, as you would expect, how the Colonel died that year,

before the swallows came flying north and home again. He was buried,

while little Rupert and Rupert's mother looked on, in that untidy

corner of the Boulogne Cemetery, where many another English half-pay

officer had been laid before him.

Of course the burial of the Colonel was very sad for Rupert; but he

soon forgot it all in the excitement of preparing for the journey

back to London. The Colonel, you see, had known that his old life

would break up soon, and had summoned from their home in London the

widow and child of his favourite son, "that Rupert, the best of the

lot," as he used to call him. And now the Colonel was dead. So his

grandson, the last of the Rupert Rays, could look forward to all the

jolly thrills of steaming across the Channel to Folkestone and

bowling in a train to London. Really life was an excellent thing.

The day of the venturesome voyage began with excited sleeplessness

and glowing health, and ended with a headache and great tiredness.

There was the bustle of embarkation on to the boat; the rattle and

bang of falling luggage; the jangle of French and English tongues;

the unstraining of mighty ropes; the "hoot! hoot!" from the funnel,

a side-splitting incident; the _suff-suff-lap-suff_ of the

ploughed-up sea; the spray of the Channel, which sprinkling one's

cheeks, caused one to roar with laughter, till more moderation was

enjoined; the incessant throb of the engines; the vision of white

cliffs, and the excitement among the passengers; the headache; the

landing on a black old pier; the privilege of guarding the luggage

by sitting upon as much of one trunk as six years' growth of boy

will cover, and pressing firmly upon two other trunks with either

hand, while Mrs. Ray (that capable lady) changed francs into

shillings; there was the wearisome and rolling train-journey,

wherein one slept, first against the window and then against the

black sleeve of an unknown gentleman; and lastly there was the

realisation that pale and sunny France had withdrawn into the past

to make room for pale and smutty London.

Now the Captain of all these manoeuvres, as the meanest

intelligence will have observed, was Mrs. Ray. Mrs. Ray was Rupert's

mother, and as beautiful as every mother must be, who has an only

son, and is a widow. Moreover she was a perfect teller of stories:

all really beautiful mothers are. And, for years after, she used at

evening time to draw young Rupert against her knees, and tell him

the traditional stories of that old half-pay officer at Boulogne.

And grandfather was indeed a hero in these stories. We suspect--but

who can sound the artful depths of a woman who is at once young,

lovely, a mother, and a widow?--that Mrs. Ray, knowing that Rupert

could never recall his father, was determined that at least one

soldierly figure should loom heroic in his childish memories. She

would tell again and again how he asked repeatedly, as he lay dying,

for "that Rupert, the best of the lot." And her son would say: "I

s'pose he meant Daddy, mother." "Yes," she would answer. "You see,

you were all Ruperts: Grandfather Rupert Ray, Daddy Rupert Ray, and

Sonny Rupert Ray, my own little Sonny Ray." (Mothers talk in this

absurd fashion, and Mrs. Ray was the chief of such offenders.)

But quite the masterpiece of all her tales was this. One summer

morning, when the Boulogue promenade was bright and crowded and

lively, the Colonel was seated with his grandson beside him. A

little distance away sat Rupert's mother, who was just about as shy

of the Colonel as the Colonel was shy of her (which fact accounts,

probably, for Rupert Ray's growing up into the shy boy we knew).

Well, all of a sudden, the boy got up, stood immediately in front of

his grandsire, and leaned forward against his knees. There was no

mistaking the meaning in the child's eyes; they said plainly: "This

is entirely the best attitude for story-telling, so please."

The officer, with military quickness, summed up the perilous

situation on his front; he had suffered himself to be bombarded by a

pair of patient eyes. And now he must either acknowledge his

incompetence by a shameful retreat, or he must stir up the dump of

his imagination and see what stories it contained. So with no small

apprehension, he drew upon his inventive genius.

A wonderful story resulted--wonderful as a prophetic parable of

things which the Colonel would not live to see. Perhaps it was only

coincidence that it should be so; perhaps the approach of death

endowed the old gentleman with the gift of dim prophecy--did he not

know that he would follow the swallows away?--perhaps all the Rays,

when they stand in that shadow, possess a mystic vision. Certainly

the boy Rupert--but there! I knew I was in danger of spoiling his

story.

If the Colonel's tale this morning was wonderful to the listener,

the author suspected that he was plagiarising. The hero was a knight

of peculiar grace, who sustained the spotless name of Sir R----

R----. He was not very handsome, having hair that was neither gold

nor brown, and a brace of absurdly sea-blue eyes. But he was

distinguished by many estimable qualities; he was English, for

example, and not French, very brave, very sober, and quite fond of

an elderly relation. And one day he was undoubtedly (although the

Colonel's conscience pricked him) plunging on foot through a dense

forest to the aid of a fellow-knight who had been captured and

imprisoned.

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

"What, indeed?" echoed the Colonel, temporising till he should

evolve an answer. "Yes, that's a very relevant question. Well, he

was a good deal fairer than Sir R---- R----, but about the same age,

only with brown eyes, and he was a very nice little boy--young

fellow, I mean."

"What was his name?"

"His name? Oh, well--" and here the Colonel, feeling with some taste

that "Smith," or "Jones," or "Robinson" was out of place in a forest

whose mediæval character was palpable, and being quite unable at

such short notice to recall any other English names, gained time by

the following ingenious detail: "Oh, well, he lost his good name by

being captured. And then--and then to his aid came the stalwart Sir

R----, with his sword drawn, and his--er--"

"Revoller," suggested the listener.

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

In this strain the Colonel proceeded, wondering whether such

abominable nonsense was interesting the child, whose gaze had now

begun to reach out to sea. In reality Rupert was thrilled, and did

not like to disturb the flow of a story so affecting. But the

strength of his feelings was too much. He was obliged to suggest an

amendment.

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

"Why, of course, the unknown knight in question did, and the sheath

of his sword clanked against his horse's side, as he dashed through

the thicket."

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

This important problem was duly settled, and several others which

were seen to be involved in such an intricate story; and a very

happy conclusion was reached, when Mrs. Ray decided that it was time

for Rupert to be taken home. She was about to lead him away, when

the Colonel, who seldom spoke to her much, abruptly murmured:

"He has that Rupert's eyes."

For a moment she was quite taken aback, and then timorously replied:

"Yes, they are very blue."

"Very blue," repeated the Colonel.

Mrs. Ray thereupon felt she must obviate an uncomfortable silence,

and began with a nervous laugh:

"He was born when we were in Geneva, you know, and we used to call

him 'our mountain boy,' saying that he had brought a speck of the

mountain skies away in his eyes."

The Colonel conceded a smile, but addressed his reply to the child:

"A mountain boy, is he?" and, placing his hand on Rupert's head, he

turned the small face upward, and watched it break into a smile.

"Well, well. A mountain boy, eh?--from the lake of Geneva. H'm. _Il

a dans les yeux un coin du lac._"

At this happy description the tears of pleasure sprang to the

foolish eyes of Mrs. Ray, while Rupert, thinking with much wisdom

that all the conditions were favourable, gazed up into the Colonel's

face, and fired his last shot.

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

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

playfully, half wearily.

§2

In the course of the same summer Master Archibald Pennybet, of

Wimbledon, celebrated his eighth birthday. He celebrated it by a

riotous waking-up in the sleeping hours of dawn; he celebrated it by

a breakfast which extended him so much that his skin became

unbearably tight; and then, in a new white sailor-suit and brown

stockings turned over at the calves to display a couple of

magnificent knees, he celebrated some more of it in the garden.

There on the summer lawn he stood, unconsciously deliberating how

best to give new expression to the personality of Archibald

Pennybet. He was dark, gloriously built, and possessed eyes that

lazily drooped by reason of their heavy lashes; and, I am sorry to

say, he evoked from a boudoir window the gurgling admiration of his

fashionable mother, who, while her hair was being dressed, allowed

her glance to swing from her hand-mirror, which framed a gratifying

vision of herself, to the window, which framed a still more

gratifying vision of her son. "He gets his good looks from me," she

thought. And, having noticed the drooping of his eyelids,

over-weighted with lashes, she brought her hand-mirror into play

again. "He is lucky," she added, "to have inherited those lazy eyes

from me."

Soon Archie retired in the direction of the kitchen-garden. The

kitchen-garden, with its opportunities of occasional refreshment

such as would not add uncomfortably to his present feeling of

tightness, was the place for a roam. Five minutes later he was

leaning against the wire-netting of the chicken-run, and offering an

old cock, who asked most pointedly for bread, a stone. To know how

to spend a morning was no easier on a birthday than on any ordinary

day.

Suddenly, however, he overheard the gardener mentioning a murder

which had been committed on Wimbledon Common, a fine tract of wild

jungle and rolling prairie, that lay across the main road. Without

waiting to prosecute inquiries which would have told him that,

although the confession was only in the morning papers, the murder

was twenty years old, he escaped unseen and set his little white

figure on a walk through the common. He was out to see the blood.

But, for a birthday, it was a disappointing morning. He discovered

for the first time that Wimbledon Common occupied an interminable

expanse of country; and really there was nothing unusual this

morning about its appearance, or about the looks of the people whom

he passed. So he gave up his quest and returned homeward. Then it

was that his lazy eyes looked down a narrow, leafy lane that ran

along the high wall of his own garden. Now all Wimbledon suspects

that this lane was designed by the Corporation as a walk for lovers.

There is evidence of the care and calculation that one spends on a

chicken-run. For the Corporation, knowing the practice of lovers,

has placed in the shady recesses of the lane a seat where these

comical people can intertwine. At the sight of the lane and the

seat, Master Pennybet immediately decided how he would occupy his

afternoon. He would move that seat along his garden wall, till it

rested beneath some ample foliage where he could lie hidden. Then he

would wait the romantic moments of the evening.

This idea proved so exciting that the luncheon of which he partook

was (for a birthday) regrettably small. And no sooner was it

finished than he rushed into the lane, and addressed his splendid

muscles to removing the seat.

To begin with he tried pushing. This failed. The more he pushed the

more his end of the seat went up into the air, while the other

remained fast in the ground. The only time he succeeded in making

the seat travel at all it went so fast that it laid him on his

stomach in the lane. So he tried pulling from the other end. This

was only partially successful. The seat moved towards him with

jerks, at one time arriving most damnably on his shins, and at

another throwing him into a sitting position on to the ground. And

there is a portion of small boys which is very sensitive to stony

ground. At these repeated checks the natural child in Mr. Pennybet

caused his eyes to become moist, whereupon the strong and

unconquerable man in him choked back a sob of temper, and pulled the

seat with a passionate determination. I tell you, such indomitable

grit will always get its way, and the seat was well lodged against

Mr. Pennybet's wall and beneath his green fastness, before the

afternoon blushed into the lovers' hour. He returned into his

garden, and, climbing up the wall by means of the mantling ivy,

reached his chosen observation-post. Through curtains of greenery he

watched the arrival of a pair of lovers, and held his breath, as

they seated themselves beneath him.

They were an even more ridiculous couple than their kind usually

are. And, when the gentleman squeezed the lady, she laughed so

foolishly that Archie Pennybet was within an ace of forgetting

himself and heartily laughing too. It was worse still, when they

began the pernicious practice of "rubbing noses." For the operation

was so new and unexpected, and withal so congenial to Archie, that

he risked discovery by craning forward to study it. He watched with

jaws parted in a wide gape of amazement, and then said to himself:

"Well, I'm damned!" There is but one step (I am told) from rubbing

noses to the real business of the kiss. And it was when the

gentleman brought the lady's lips into contact with his own, and the

peculiar sound was heard in the lane, that Mr. Pennybet's moment had

come.

"Hem! Hem! Oh, I say!" he suggested loudly, and sought safety by

slipping rapidly down his side of the wall, scratching his hands and

bare knees as he fell.

This fine triumph had been at a cost. Archie surveyed himself. His

new suit was clearly disreputable. And, in his mother's eyes, the

one crime punishable by whipping was to make a new suit

disreputable. The more he studied the extent of the damage, the more

he felt convinced that, in the expiation of this potty little

offence, his body would be commandeered to play a painful and rather

passive part.

His brain, therefore, worked rapidly and well. It was more than

possible, thought he, that his mother's sympathy could be induced to

exceed her indignation. She was really an affectionate woman; and

this was the line to go upon. So he squeezed the scratches in his

knees to expedite the issue of blood, and bravely entered the house.

"Mother," he called, introducing suitable pathos into his tones,

"Mother, I've fallen all down the wall!"

This effective opening, should it seem successful, it was his

intention to follow up with seasonable allusions to his birthday.

But alas! one glimpse of Mrs. Pennybet's face when she saw his suit,

showed him the folly of remaining on the scene, and with the speed

of a fawn, he was out in the garden, and up an elm tree, swaying

about like a crow's nest. And there, a minute later, was Mrs.

Pennybet standing below, her skirts held up in one hand, a small

cane in the other.

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

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

* * * * *

At least Mrs. Pennybet, a vivacious _raconteuse_, always declared to

me that such was his reply. I do not trust these mothers, however,

and regard it as a piece of her base embroidery. At any rate, it is

certain that her effort to secure Archie for punishment was quite

unsuccessful. And, an hour afterwards, a small figure came quietly

down the trunk of the tree, and, entering the room where his mother

was, sat quickly in a big arm-chair, and held on tightly to its

arms. This position prevented access to that particular area of

Archie Pennybet, which, in the view of himself, his mother, and all

sound conservatives, must be exposed, if corporal punishment is to

be the standard thing. Mrs. Pennybet, good woman, admitted her

defeat, and kissed him repeatedly, while he still held himself tight

in his chair.

Such was Archie Pennybet, whom Mrs. Pennybet considered a remarkably

fine boy, and the son of a remarkably fine woman. In this battle of

wits he undoubtedly won. And it is a fact that throughout life he

made a point of winning, as all shall see, who read Rupert Ray's

story.

He was a mischievous, tumbling scamp, I suppose; but what are we to

say? All young animals gambol, and are saucy. Only this morning I

was watching a lamb butt its mother in the ribs, and roll in the

grass, and dirty its wool--the graceless young rascal!

§3

But come, we are keeping Edgar Gray Doe waiting.

If you have ever steamed up the Estuary of the Fal, that stately

Cornish river, and gazed with rapture at the lofty and thick-wooded

hills, through which the wide stream runs, you have probably seen on

the eastern bank the splendid mansion of Graysroof. You have admired

its doric façade and the deep, green groves that embrace it on every

side. Perhaps it has been pointed out to you as the home of Sir

Peter Gray, the once-famous Surrey bowler, and the parent of a whole

herd of young cricketing Grays.

It was in this palatial dwelling that little Edgar Gray Doe awoke to

a consciousness of himself, and of many other remarkable things;

such things as the broad, silver mouth of the Fal; the green slopes,

on which his house stood; the rather fearsome woods that surrounded

it; and, above all, the very obvious fact that he was not as other

boys. For instance, his cricketing cousins, these Gray boys, were

sons with a visible mother and father, and, in being so, appeared to

conform to a normal condition, while _he_ was a nephew with an uncle

and aunt. Again these fellows were blue-eyed and drab, and, as such,

were decent and reasonable, while _he_ was brown-eyed and

preposterously fair-haired. To be sure, it was only his oval face

that saved him from the horrible indignity of being called

"Snowball."

One morning of that perfect summer, which was the sixth of Rupert

Ray, and the eighth of Archie Pennybet, Edgar Gray Doe felt some

elation at the prospect of a visit from a very imposing friend. This

person was staying down the stream at Falmouth; and he and his

mother had been invited by Lady Gray to spend the day at Graysroof.

His name was Archie Pennybet. And the power of his personality lay

in these remarkable qualities: first, he enjoyed the distinction of

being two years older than Master Doe; secondly, he had a genius for

games that thrilled, because they were clearly sin; and thirdly, his

hair was dark and glossy, so he could legitimately twit other people

with being albinos.

And to-day this exciting creature would have to devote himself

entirely to Edgar Doe, as the Gray boys were safely billeted in

public and preparatory schools, and there was thus no sickening

possibility of his chasing after them, or going on to their side

against Edgar.

Edgar Doe knew that Mrs. Pennybet and Archie were coming in a

row-boat from Falmouth, and it was a breathless moment when he saw

them stepping on to the Graysroof landing-stage, and Lady Gray

walking down the sloping lawn to meet them.

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

Rather startled by this sudden notoriety, Edgar approached the new

arrivals.

"Hallo, kid," repeated Master Pennybet; and then stopped, his supply

of greetings being exhausted.

"Hallo," answered Edgar, slowly and rather shyly, for he was two

years younger than anyone present.

"Welcome to the Fal," said Lady Gray to Mrs. Pennybet. "Archie, are

you going to give me a kiss?"

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

Lady Gray concealed the fact that she thought her guest's little

boy a hateful child, and, having patted his head, sent him off with

Edgar Doe to play in the Day-nursery.

Of course the Master of the Ceremonies in the Day-nursery was Master

Pennybet. Master Doe was his devoted mate. The first game was a

disgusting one, called "Spits." It consisted in the two combatants

facing each other with open umbrellas, and endeavouring to register

points by the method suggested in the title of the game; the

umbrella was a shield, with which to intercept any good shooting.

Luckily for their self-respect in later years, this difficult game

soon yielded place to an original competition, known as "Fire and

Water." You placed a foot-bath under that portable gas-stove which

was in the Day-nursery; you lit all the trivets in the stove to

represent a house on fire; and you had a pail, ready to be filled

from the bathroom, which, need we say, was the fire-station. The

rules provided that the winner was he who could extinguish the

conflagration raging in the foot-bath in the shortest possible time,

and with the least expenditure of water. But the natural desire to

win and to record good times meant that you were apt, in the haste

and enthusiasm of the moment, to miss the bath entirely, and to

flood quite a different part of the nursery. It was this flaw in an

otherwise simple game, which brought the play to an end. Intimations

that an aquatic tourney of some sort was the feature in the

Day-nursery began to leak through to the room below. The competitors

were apprehended and brought for judgment before the ladies, who

were sitting in the garden and watching the Fal as it streamed by to

the sea.

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

This ruling Archie did not veto or contest, for he had wearied of

indoor amusements, and felt that the well-timbered groves would

afford new avenues for play. So the boys departed like deer among

the trunks of the trees.

It was a cosy conversation which the ladies enjoyed after this. Any

conversation would be cosy that had been reared in the glory of such

a garden, and in the comfort of those lazy chairs. Mrs. Pennybet

began by declaring, as these shameless ladies do, that her hostess's

fair-haired nephew was quite the most beautiful child she had ever

seen; she could hug him all day; nay, she could eat him. And,

thereupon Lady Gray told her the whole story of Edgar Gray Doe; how

his mother had been Sir Peter's sister, and the loveliest woman in

Western Cornwall; how she had paid with her life for Edgar's being;

and how her husband, the chief of lovers, had quickly followed his

young bride.

"They're an emotional lot, these Does," said Lady Gray. "As surely

as they come fair-haired, they are brilliantly romantic and blindly

adoring. And Edgar's every inch a Doe. Anybody can lead him into

mischief. And anybody who likes will do so."

"Oh, I suppose he's troublesome like all boys," suggested Mrs.

Pennybet, with a rapid mental survey of the existence of Archie. "He

will grow into a fine man some day."

"Perhaps," said Lady Gray, staring over the tranquil water of the

Fal, as though it represented the intervening years. "We shall see."

"And Archie," continued Mrs. Pennybet, "though he's a plague now,

will be a brilliant and dominating man, I think. He's not easily

mastered, and I don't believe adverse circumstances will ever beat

him.... Isn't it funny to think that these restless boys are here to

inherit the world? We old fogies"--Mrs. Pennybet laughed, for she

didn't mean what she said--"are really done for and shelved. These

boys are the interesting ones, whose tales have yet to be told."

The speaker dropped her voice, as she found herself moralising; and

Lady Gray perceived that an atmosphere of tender speculation had

risen around their conversation. She turned her face away, and

looked over that part of the inheritable world which met her gaze.

From her feet perfect lawns sloped down to a gracious waterway,

which shuddered occasionally in a gentle wind; on every side

pleasing trees were massed into shady and grateful woods; overhead

the noonday sun lit up a deep-blue sky. Perhaps the sublimity of the

scene played upon her softer emotions. Perhaps all intense beauty is

pathetic, and makes one think of poor illusions and unavailing

dreams. Lady Gray wondered why she could not feel, on this serene

morning, the same confidence in Edgar Doe's future, as her friend

felt in Archie's; why she should rather be conscious of a romantic

foreboding. But she only murmured:

"Yes, we must bow before sovereign youth."

And that was the last word uttered, till the sound of hearty boys'

voices, coming from the trunks of the trees, prompted Mrs. Pennybet

to say cheerfully:

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

As she spoke, Archie Pennybet, dark and dictatorial, and Edgar Doe,

fair and enthusiastic, came into view.

"Yes," replied Lady Gray, "but only two of them. There are others

they must share it with. Shall we go indoors?"

And indoors or out-of-doors, that was a very delightful day spent at

Graysroof. And, when the sun's rays began to grow ruddy, there came

the pleasant journey down the Estuary to Falmouth Town. Mrs.

Pennybet and her son were rowed homeward by Baptist, that sombre

boatman employed at Graysroof, in Master Doe's own particular boat.

"_The Lady Fal_," men called it, from the dainty conceit that it was

the spouse of the lordly Estuary. Edgar Doe accompanied them, as the

master of his craft.

Nobody talked much during the voyage. Baptist was always too solemn

for speech. Master Doe, on these occasions, liked to dream with one

hand trailing in the water. Master Pennybet, in the common way of

tired children, finished the day in listless woolgathering. And his

mother, recalling the conversation in the stately garden up the

stream, fell to wondering whither these boys were tending.

So the passage down the full and slumbery Fal seemed nearly a

soundless thing. But all the real river-noises were there; the birds

were singing endlessly in the groves; the gulls with their hoarse

language were flying seawards from the mud-flats of Truro; the water

was gently lapping the sides of the boat; and voices could be heard

from the distances higher up and lower down the stream. And behind

all this prattle of the Estuary hung the murmur of the sea.

It was a very quiet boat that unladed the Pennybets on the steps of

a stone pier at Falmouth, and then swung round and carried Edgar up

its own wake. Baptist was a glorious hand with the paddles, and, as

the _Lady Fal_ swept easily over the glassy water, Edgar gazed at

the familiar things coming into view. There, at last, was the huge

house of Graysroof, belittled by the loftiness of the quilted hill,

on whose slope it stood, and by the extent of its surrounding woods.

And there in the water lay mirrored a reflection of house and trees

and hillside. Baptist rested on his oars, and, turning round on his

seat, drank in the loveliness of England and the Fal. His oars

remained motionless for a long time, till he suddenly commented:

"H'm."

This encouraging remark Master Doe interpreted as a willingness to

converse, and he let escape a burst of confidence.

"You know, I like Archie Pennybet very much indeed. In fack, I think

I like him better than anyone else in the world, 'septing of course

my relations."

Watching his hearer nervously to see how he would receive this

important avowal, Master Doe flushed when he saw no signs of emotion

on Baptist's countenance. He didn't like thinking he had made

himself look a fool. Probably Baptist perceived this, for he felt he

must contrive a reply, and, abandoning "H'm" as too uncouth and too

unflavoured with sympathy, gave of his best, muttering:

"Ah, he's one of we."

Then, realising that the sun had gone in a blaze of glory, and that

he must waste no further time in prolonged gossip, he dipped his

blade into the still water, and turned the head of the boat for the

Graysroof bank; and for the things that should be.

BOOK I

FIVE GAY YEARS OF SCHOOL

_Part I: Tidal Reaches_

CHAPTER I

RUPERT RAY BEGINS HIS STORY

§1

"I'm the best-looking person in this room," said Archibald Pennybet.

"Ray's face looks as though somebody had trodden on it, and

Doe's--well, Doe's would be better if it had been trodden on."

It was an early morning of the Kensingtowe Summer Term, and the

three of us, Archie Pennybet, Edgar Gray Doe, and I, Rupert Ray,

were waiting in the Junior Preparation Room at Bramhall House, till

the bell should summon us over the playing fields to morning school.

Kensingtowe, of course, is the finest school in England, and

Bramhall its best house. Now, Pennybet, though not himself

courteous, always insisted that Doe and I should treat him with

proper respect, so, since he was senior and thus magnificent, I'll

begin by describing him.

He was right in saying that he was the handsomest. He was a tall boy

of fifteen years, with long limbs that were saved from any unlovely

slimness by their full-fleshed curves and perfect straightness. His

face, whose skin was as smooth as that of a bathed and anointed

Greek, was crowned by dark hair, and made striking by a pair of

those long-lashed eyes that are always brown. And in character he

was the most remarkable. Though two years our senior, he

deliberately lagged behind the boys of his own age, and remained the

oldest member of our form. Thoughtless masters called him a dunce,

but abler ones knew him to be only idle. And Pennybet cared little

for either opinion. He had schemed to remain in a low form; and that

was enough. It was better to be a field-marshal among the "kids"

than a ranker among his peers. Like Satan, for whom he probably felt

a certain admiration, he found it better to reign in hell than serve

in heaven.

The personal attendants of this splendid sultan consisted of Edgar

Doe and myself. We were not allowed by him to forget that, if he

could total fifteen years, we could only scrape together a bare

thirteen. We were mere children. Doe and I, being thirteen and an

exact number of days, were twins, or we would have been, had it not

been for the divergence of our parentage. We often expressed a wish

that this divergence were capable of remedy. It involved minor

differences. For instance, while Doe's eyes were brown, mine were

blue; and while Doe's hair was very fair, mine was a tedious drab

that had once been gold. Moreover, in place of my wide mouth, Doe

possessed lips that were always parted like those of a pretty girl.

Indeed, if Archie Pennybet was the handsomest of us three, it is

certain that Edgar Gray Doe was the prettiest.

We came to be discussing our looks this morning, because Pennybet,

having discovered that among other accomplishments he was a fine

ethnologist, was about to determine the race and tribe of each of us

by an examination of our features and colouring.

"I'm a Norman," he decided, and threw himself back on his chair,

putting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, as though

that were a comely Norman attitude, "a pure Norman, but I don't know

how my hair got so dark, and my eyes such a spiffing brown."

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

immediate interest.

"You, Ray? Oh, you're a Saxon. Your name's Rupert, you see, and

you've blue eyes and a fair skin, and all that rot."

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

examination.

"What am I?" he eagerly asked, offering his oval face and parted

lips for scrutiny.

"You? Oh, Saxon, with a dash of Southern blood. Brown eyes, you see,

and that sloppy milk-and-coffee skin. And there's a dash of Viking

in you--that's your fair hair. Adulterated Saxon you are."

At this Doe loudly protested that he was a pure Saxon, a perfect

Cornish Saxon from the banks of the Fal.

Penny always discouraged precocious criticism, so he replied:

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

"_You?_ Who are you?"

Penny let his thumbs go further into his armholes, and assured us

with majestic suavity:

"I? I'm _Me_."

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

"Well, you're neither of you me," interrupted the third fool in the

room. "I'm me. So sucks!"

"Now you two boys," began our stately patron, "don't you begin

dictating to _me_. Once and for all, Doe is Doe, Ray is Ray, and I'm

Me. Why, by Jove! Doe-Ray-Me! It's a joke; and I'm a gifted person."

This discovery of the adaptability of our names was so startling

that I exclaimed:

"Good Lord! How mad!"

Penny only shrugged his shoulders, and generally plumed himself on

his little success. And Doe said:

"Has that only just dawned on you?"

"Observe," sneered Penny. "The Gray Doe is jealous. He would like

the fame of having made this fine jest. So he pretends he thought of

it long ago. He bags it."

"Not worth bagging," suggested Doe, who was pulling a lock of his

pale hair over his forehead, and trying with elevated eye-brows to

survey it critically. His feet were resting on a seat in front of

him, and his trousers were well pulled up, so as to show a certain

tract of decent sock. Penny scanned him as though his very

appearance were nauseating.

"Well, why did you bag it?"

"I didn't."

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

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

"My dear little boy," said Penny, with intent to hurt, "we all know

the reputation for lying you had at your last school."

As we had all been at Kensingtowe's Preparatory School together, I

was in a position to know that this was rather wild, and

remonstrated with him.

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

The nobility of my interference impressed me as I made it.

Meanwhile the angry blood mounted to Doe's face, but he carelessly

replied:

"You show what a horrible liar you are by your last remark. I never

said your beastly idea was mine; and because you accused me of doing

so, and I said I didn't, you call me a liar: which is a dirty lie,

if you like. But of course one expects lies from you."

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

Doe parried this thrust with a sarcastic acquiescence.

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

Now Penny was out to hurt. A mere youngster had presumed to argue

and be cheeky with him: and discipline must be maintained. To this

end there must be punishment; and punishment, to be effective, must

hurt. So he adopted a new line, and with his clever strategy strove

to enlist my support by deigning to couple my name with his.

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

This poisonous little remark requires some explanation. Mr. Radley,

the assistant house-master at Bramhall House, was a hard master, who

would have been hated for his insufferable conceptions of

discipline, had he not been the finest bat in the Middlesex team.

Just about this time there was a libel current that he made a

favourite of Edgar Doe because he was pretty. "Doe," I had once

said, "Radley's rather keen on you, isn't he?" And Doe had turned

red and scoffed: "How absolutely silly--but, I say, do you really

think so?" Seeing that he found pleasure in the insinuation, I had

followed it up with chaff, upon which he had suddenly cut up rough,

and left me in a pique.

This morning, as Penny pricked him with this poisoned fang, Doe

began to feel that for the moment he was alone amongst us three; and

odd-man-out. He put a tentative question to me, designed to see

whether I were siding with him or with the foe.

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

"No," I said. I was still under the glamour of having been appealed

to by the forceful personality of Pennybet; and, besides, it

certainly wasn't.

"Oh, of course you'd agree with anything Penny said, if he asked

you to. But you know you don't really believe I ever sucked up to

Radley."

This rejoinder was bad tactics, for by its blow at my face it forced

me to take sides against him in the quarrel. So I answered:

"Rather! Why, you always do."

"Dir-dirty liar!"

"Ha-ha!" laughed Penny. He saw that he had been successful in his

latest thrust, and set himself to push home the advantage. The

dominance of his position must be secured at all costs. He let down

his heavy-lashed eyelids, as though, for his part, he only desired a

peaceful sleep, and said: "Ha-ha! Ray, that friend of yours is

losing his temper. He's terribly vicious. Mind he doesn't scratch."

Doe's parted lips came suddenly together, his face got red, and he

moved impatiently as he sat. But he said nothing, either because the

words would not come, or lest something more unmanly should.

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

to blub."

Doe left his seat, and stood upon his feet, his lips set in one firm

line. He tossed his hair off his forehead, and, keeping his face

averted from our gaze lest we should detect any moisture about the

eyes, opened a desk, and selected the books he would require. They

were books over which he had scrawled with flourishes:

"Mr. Edgar Gray Doe, Esq.,"

"E. Gray Doe, M.A.,"

"Rev. Edgar G. Doe, D.D.,"

"E. G. Doe, Physician and Surgeon,"

and, when he had placed them on his arm, he walked towards the door

with his face still turned away from us.

"Oh, don't go, Doe. Don't be a sloppy ass," I said, feeling that I

had been fairly trapped into deserting a fellow-victim, and backing

our common tyrant.

My appeal Doe treated as though he had not heard it; and Penny,

certain that his victory was won, and that he had no further need

of my support, kicked it away with the sneer: "Hit Doe, and Ray's

bruised! What a David and Jonathan we're going to be! How we agree

like steak and kidney!... Rather a nice expression, that."

Penny's commentary was thus turned inwards upon himself, in an

affectionate criticism of his vocabulary, to show the utter

detachment of his interest from the pathetic exit of Edgar Doe. For

now Doe had reached the door, which he opened, passed, and slammed.

In a twinkling I had opened it again, and was looking down the

corridor. There was no sign of my friend anywhere. The moment he had

slammed the door he must have run.

I returned to the preparation room, and Penny sighed, as much as to

say: "What a pity little boys are so petulant and quarrelsome." But

the victory was his, as it always was, and he could think of other

things. There was a clock on the wall behind him, but, too

comfortable to turn his head, he asked me:

"What's the beastly?"

I glanced at the clock, and intimated, sulkily enough, that the

beastly was twenty minutes past nine. He groaned.

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

He stood up, stretched himself, yawned, apologised, got his books,

and occasionally tossed a remark to me, as if he were quite unaware

that I was not only trying to sulk, but also badly wanted him to

know it. As I looked for my books, I sought for the rudest and most

painful insult I could offer him. My duty to Doe demanded that it

should be something quite uncommon. And from a really fine selection

I had just chosen: "You're the biggest liar I've ever met, and, for

all I know, you're as big a thief," when I turned round and found he

was gone. Pennybet always left the field as its master.

§2

Within Radley's spacious class-room some twenty of us took our way

to our desks. Radley mounted his low platform, and, resting his

knuckles on his writing-table, gazed down upon us. He was a man of

over six feet, with the shoulders, chest, and waist of a forcing

batsman. His neck, perhaps, was a little too big, the fault of a

powerful frame; and the wrist that came below his cuff was such that

it made us wonder what was the size of his forearm. His mouth was

hard, and set above a squaring chin, so that you thought him

relentless, till his grey eyes shook your judgment.

"Let me see," he said, as he stood, looking down upon us, "you

should come to me for both periods this morning. Well, I shall

probably be away all the second period. You will come to this

class-room as usual, and Herr Reinhardt will take you in French."

"Oh, joy!" I muttered. Boys whom Radley could not see flipped their

fingers to express delight. Others lifted up the lids of their

desks, and behind these screens went through a pantomime that

suggested pleasure at good news. The fact was that the announcement

that we were to have second period with the German, Reinhardt, was

as good as promising us a holiday. Nay, it was rather better; for,

in an unexpected holiday, we might have been at a loss what to do,

whereas under Reinhardt we had no doubt--we played the fool.

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

We got on with it, knowing that it was only for a short time that we

need work that morning.

It was writing work I know, for, after a while, I had a note

surreptitiously passed to me between folded blotting-paper. The note

bore in Doe's ambitiously ornate writing the alarming statement: "I

shall never like you so much after what you said this morning Yours

Edgar Gray Doe." There was room for me to pen an answer, and in my

great round characters I wrote: "I never really meant anything and

after you left I tried to be rude to Penny but he'd gone and will

you still be my chum Yours S. Ray." (My real name was Rupert, but I

was sometimes nicknamed "Sonny Ray" from the sensational news, which

had leaked out, that my mother so called me, and I took pleasure in

signing myself "S. Ray.") My handsome apology was passed back to the

offended party, and in due course the paper returned to me, bearing

his reply: "I don't know We must talk it over, but don't tell anyone

Yours Edgar Gray Doe." That was the last sentence destined to be

written on this human document, for Radley, without looking up from

the exercise he was correcting, said quietly:

"In the space of the last five minutes Doe has twice corresponded

with Ray, and Ray has once replied to Doe. Now both Ray and Doe will

come up here with the letters."

To the accompaniment of a titter or two, Ray and Doe came up, I

trying to look defiantly indifferent to the fact that he was going

to read my silly remarks, and Doe with his lips firmly together, and

his fair hair the fairer for the blush upon his forehead and cheeks.

Radley left us standing by his desk, while at his leisure he

finished his correcting; then, still without looking up, he ordered:

"Hand over the letters."

A little doggedly I passed over the single sheet of paper feeling

some absurd satisfaction that, since he evidently thought there were

several sheets involved, his uncanny knowledge was at least wrong in

one particular. Doe, on my right hand, turned redder and redder to

see the paper going beneath the master's eye, and made a few nervous

grimaces. Radley read the correspondence pitilessly; and, with his

hard mouth unrelaxed, turned first on Doe, as though sizing him up,

and then on me. He stared at my face till I felt fidgety, and my

mind, which always in moments of excitement ran down most ridiculous

avenues, framed the sentence: "Don't stare, because it's rude," at

which involuntary thought I scarcely restrained a nervous titter.

After this critical inspection, Radley murmured:

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

at a breath."

As he said this, Doe edged closer to me, and I wondered if Radley

was a decent chap.

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

Now my blush outclassed anything Doe had yet produced, and I looked

in dumb confusion towards my friend. Radley refrained from forcing

the question, but pursued with brutal humour:

"Well, there's nothing like suffering together to cement a

friendship. Doe, put out your knuckles."

Radley was ever a man of surprises. This was the first time he had

invited the use of our knuckles for his punitive practices. Doe

proffered four of those on the back of his narrow, cream-coloured

right hand. He did it readily enough, but trembled a little, and the

blush that had disappeared returned at a rush to his neck. Radley

took his ruler, and struck the knuckles with a very sharp rap. Doe's

lips snapped together and remained together,--and that was all.

"And Ray," invited Radley.

I offered the back of my right hand, and, copying my friend, kept my

lips well closed. My eyes had shut themselves nervously, when I

heard a clatter, and realised that Radley had dropped his ruler.

Leaving my right hand extended for punishment, I stooped down,

picked up the ruler with my left, and gave it back to Radley.

Perhaps the blood that now coloured my face was partly due to this

stooping. Radley smiled. It was his habit to become suddenly gentle

after being hard. One second, his hard mouth would frame hard

things; another second, and his grey eyes would redress the balance.

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

Back we walked abreast to our places, Doe palpably annoyed that he

had not been the one to pick up the ruler. He was a romantic youth

and would have liked to occupy my picturesque and rather heroic

position.

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

wanted to."

This utterly senseless remark I had no opportunity of answering, so

I determined to sulk with Doe, as soon as the interval should

arrive. When, however, the bell rang for that ten-minutes'

excitement, I forgot everything in the glee of thinking that the

second period would be spent with Herr Reinhardt. Ten minutes to go,

and then--and then, Mr. Cæsar!

§3

In the long corridor, on to which Radley's class-room opened,

gathered our elated form, awaiting the arrival of Herr Reinhardt. He

was late. He always was: and it was a mistake to be so, for it gave

us the opportunity, when he drew near, of asking one another the

time in French: "Kell er eight eel? Onze er ay dammy. Wee, wee."

Cæsar Reinhardt, the German, remains upon my mind chiefly as being

utterly unlike a German: he was a long man, very deaf, with drooping

English moustaches, and such obviously weak eyes that now, whenever

Leah's little eye-trouble is read in Genesis, I always think of

Reinhardt. But I think of him as "Mr. Cæsar." Why "Mr. Cæsar" and

not purely "Cæsar" I cannot explain, but the "Mr." was inseparable

from the nickname. Good Mr. Cæsar was misplaced in his profession.

Had he not been obliged to spend his working life in the position of

one who has just been made to look a fool, he would have been an

attractive and lovable person. He had the most beautiful tenor

voice, which, when he spoke was like liquid silver, and, when he

sang elaborate opera passages, made one see glorious wrought-steel

gateways of heavenly palaces. This inefficient master owed his

position to the great vogue enjoyed by his books: "Reinhardt's

German Conversation," "Reinhardt's French Pieces," and others. But

the boys, by common consent, decided not to identify this "Cæsar

Reinhardt, Modern Language Master at Kensingtowe School" with their

own dear Mr. Cæsar. Thus, you see, in their ignorance, they were

able to bring up the Reinhardt works to Mr. Cæsar, and say with

worried brows: "Here, sir. This bally book's all wrong"; "I could

write a better book than this myself, sir"; "The Johnny who wrote

this book, sir--well, _st. st._" Pennybet, however, used to tremble

on the brink of identification, when he made the idiotic mistake of

saying: "Shall I bring up my Cæsar, sir,--I mean, my Reinhardt?"

The jubilation of our class, as we lolled or clog-danced in the

corridor, had need to be organised into some systematic fooling; and

for once in a way, the boys accepted a suggestion of mine.

"Let's all hum 'God Save the King' exactly at twelve o'clock. Mr.

Cæsar won't hear; he's too deaf."

Immediately several boys started to sing the popular air in

question, and others went for a slide along the corridor, both of

which performances are generally construed as meaning: "Right-ho!"

"It's crude," commented Penny, "but I'll not interfere. I might

even help you--who knows? And here comes Mr. Cæsar. Ah, wee, wee."

It was our custom to race in a body along the corridor to meet Mr.

Cæsar, and to arrive breathless at his side, where we would fight to

walk, one on his right hand, and another on his left. In the course

of a brilliant struggle several boys would be prostrated, not

unwillingly. We would then escort him in triumph to his door, and

all offer to turn the lock, crying: "Let _me_ have the key, sir."

"Do let _me_, sir." "You never let _me_, sir--dashed unfair." When

someone had secured the key, he would fling wide the door, as though

to usher in all the kings of Asia, but promptly spoil this courtly

action by racing after the door ere it banged against the wall,

holding it in an iron grip like a runaway horse, and panting

horribly at the strain. This morning I was honoured with the key. I

examined it and saw that it was stuffed up with dirt and there would

be some delay outside the class-room door while the key underwent

alterations and repairs.

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

None had; but Pennybet offered to go to Bramhall House in search of

one. He could do it in twenty minutes, he said.

"Dear me, how annoying!" I shook the key, I hammered it, I blew down

it till it gave forth a shrill whistle, and Penny said: "Off side."

And then I giggled into the key.

Don't think Mr. Cæsar tolerated all this without a mild protest. I

distinctly remember his saying in his silvery voice: "Give it to me,

Ray. I'll do it," and my replying, as I looked up into his delicate

eyes: "No, it's all right, sir. You leave it to me, sir."

In due course I threw open the door with a triumphant "There!" The

door hit the side-wall with a bang that upset the nervous systems of

neighbouring boys, who felt a little faint, had hysterics, and

recovered. Mr. Cæsar, feeling that the class was a trifle unpunctual

in starting, hurriedly entered.

Then Pennybet distinguished himself. He laid his books unconcernedly

on the master's desk, and walked with a dandy's dignity to the

window. Having surveyed the view with a critical air, he faced round

and addressed Mr. Cæsar courteously: "May I shut the window for you,

sir?" adding in a lower tone that he was always willing to oblige.

Without waiting for the permission to be granted, he turned round

again and, pulling up each sleeve that his cuffs might not be soiled

in the operation, proceeded to turn the handle, by means of which

the lofty window was closed.

Now there were four long windows in a row, and they all needed

shutting--this beautiful summer morning. None of us was to be

outdone in politeness by Penny; and all rushed to the coveted

handles so as to be first in shutting the remaining windows. The

element of competition and the steeplechasing methods necessary, if

we were to surmount the intervening desks, made it all rather

exciting. Several boys, converging from different directions,

arrived at the handles at the same time. It was natural, then, that

a certain amount of discussion should follow as to whose right it

was to shut the windows, and that the various little assemblies

debating the point should go and refer the question simultaneously

to Mr. Cæsar.

Mr. Cæsar gave his answer with some emphasis:

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

This rhetorical question being in the nature of a command, we

sullenly complied, tossing our heads to show our sense of the

indignity to which we had been submitted. Pennybet, meanwhile,

continued to turn his handle in a leisurely fashion and touch his

forehead like an organ-grinder.

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

powerlessness.

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

"Yes, sir," answered Penny, who had no sympathy with German, French,

or any of these ludicrous languages. "Yes, sir, we had two, and one

died."

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

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

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

mutineer to his place.

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

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

reproachfully.

Our friend always expressed his sense of injustice with this sad

"Oh, _sir_," and, as he generally detected a vein of injustice in

any demand made upon him, the expression was of frequent occurrence.

Mr. Cæsar first moved his lips incompetently, and then, with a

studied slowness that was meant to sound imperious, began:

"When I say 'Sit'--"

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

"That's impertinence."

But Penny had his head thrown back, and was gazing out of eyes,

curtained by the fall of heavy-fringed lids, at the ceiling.

"Pennybet," cried his master, his very voice apprehensive, "will you

have the goodness to attend?"

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

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

"Oh, _sir_."

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

"Or of a pig!"

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

"That's consummate impudence!"

"Oh, is it, sir?" Penny's tone suggested that he was grateful for

the enlightenment. Henceforth he would not be in two minds on the

subject.

Mr. Cæsar, repulsed again by the more powerful character of the boy,

tried to cover the feebleness of his position by sounding as

threatening as possible.

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

insufferable!"

Loud murmurs of dissent from twenty boys greeted this aspersion. The

class resolved itself into an Opposition, inspired by one object,

which was to repudiate aspersions. Penny excellently voiced their

resentment.

"Oh, _sir_." (Opposition cheers.)

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

Penny.

"Will you go to your seat at once?"

Penny, with all his power, was still a boy; and for a moment the

child in him flinched before the exceedingly close approach of Mr.

Cæsar. But the next minute he looked up at the still open window;

shivered, and shuddered; rubbed his cold hands (this beautiful

summer morning); buttoned himself up warmly; went to the master's

desk for his books; dropped them one after another; blew on his

numbed fingers to infuse a little warmth into them, contriving a

whistle, and all the time looking most rebukingly at his tyrannical

master; picked up four books and dropped two of them; picked up

those and dropped one more; walked to his seat in high sorrow, and

banged the whole lot of the books down upon the desk and floor in an

appalling cataract, as the full cruelty of Mr. Cæsar's treatment

came suddenly home to him.

When we recovered from this shattering explosion of Penny's books, a

little quiet work would have begun, had not Doe, with his romantic

imagination lit by the glow of Penny's audacity, started to crave

the notoriety of being likewise a leader of men. He rose from his

desk, approached Mr. Cæsar, and extended his hand with a belated

"Good morning, sir."

Poor Mr. Cæsar, in the kindliness of his heart, was touched by Doe's

graceful action, and grasped the proffered hand, saying: "Good

morning, Doe." By this time the whole class was arranged in a

tolerably straight line behind Doe, and waiting to go through the

ceremony of shaking hands.

Work commenced at about twenty minutes to twelve, and, when twelve

should come, we were to render, according to programme, "God Save

the King," with some delicate humming. For want of something better

to do, I wrote a clause of the exercise set. Mr. Cæsar's back was

now turned and he was studying a wall-map.

"Shall I?"

"Yes, rather!"

These two whispered sentences I heard from behind me. Inquisitively

I turned round to see what simmered there.

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

Events of some moment were happening in the rear. It had occurred to

several that the hands of the clock might be encouraged with a

slight push to hasten their journey over the next few minutes. Doe,

half anxious to be the daring one to do it, half nervous of the

consequences, had whispered: "Shall I?" And his advisers had

answered: "Yes, rather!" He threw down a piece of blotting paper,

and tip-toed towards it, as though to pick it up. Seeing with a

side-glance that Mr. Cæsar's back was still turned, he mounted a

form, and pushed on the clock's hands. Then, hurriedly getting

down, he flew back nervously to his seat, where he pretended to be

rapidly writing.

Hearing these slithy and suggestive movements, I declined to remain

any longer ignorant of their meaning. After all, I had suggested the

"whole bally business," and was entitled to know the means selected

for its conduct. So round went my inquisitive head. Then I shook in

my glee. Someone had pushed on the hands of the clock, and it was

three minutes to twelve. There was a rustle of excitement in the

room. The silence of expectancy followed. "Two-minutes-to" narrowed

into "One-minute-to"; and after a premonitory click, which produced

sufficient excitement to interfere with our breath, the clock struck

twelve.

Inasmuch as I occupied a very favourable position, I got up to

conduct proceedings. I faced the class, stretched out my right hand,

which held a pen by way of a baton, and whispered: "One. Two.

_Three_."

It began. I have often wondered since how I could have been so wrong

in my calculations. I had estimated that, if we all hummed, there

would result a gentle murmur. I never dreamt that each of the twenty

boys would respond so splendidly to my appeal. Instead of a gentle

murmur, the National Hymn was opened with extraordinary volume and

spirit.

My first instinct was the low one of self-preservation. Feeling no

desire to play a leading part in this terrible outbreak, I hastily

sat down with a view to resuming my studies. Unfortunately I sat

down too heavily, and there was the noise of a bump, which served to

bring the performance to an effective conclusion. My books clattered

to the floor, and Mr. Cæsar turned on me with a cry of wrath.

"Ray, what are you doing?"

It was a sudden and awkward question; and, for a second, I was at a

loss for words to express to my satisfaction what I was doing. Penny

seemed disappointed at my declension into disgrace, and murmured

reproachfully: "O Rupert, my little Rupert, _st. st._" I saw that

the game was up. Mr. Cæsar had inquired what I was doing; and a

survey of what I was doing showed me that, between some antecedent

movements and some subsequent effects, my central procedure was a

conducting of the class. So, very red but trying to be impudent, I

said as much, after first turning round and making an unpleasant

face at Penny.

"Conducting, sir," I explained, as though nothing could be more

natural at twelve o'clock.

"Conducting!" said Mr. Cæsar. "Well, you may be able to conduct the

class, but you certainly cannot conduct yourself."

This resembling a joke, the class expressed its appreciation in a

prolonged and uproarious laugh. It was a stupendous laugh. It had

fine crescendo and diminuendo passages, and only died hard, after a

chain of intermittent "Ha-ha's." Then it had a glorious

resurrection, but faded at last into the distance, a few stray

"Ha-ha's" from Pennybet bringing up the rear.

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

with anger and suffering.

"Are you responsible for this outrage, Ray?"

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

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

There was no answer, and every boy looked at the remainder of the

class to show his ignorance of the whole matter. Doe glanced from

one to another for instructions. Some by facial movements suggested

an avowal of his part, but he whispered: "Not yet," and waited,

blushing.

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

The words were scarcely out of Mr. Cæsar's mouth, before every boy

was protesting. I caught above the confusion such complaints as:

"Oh, sir!" "But _really_, sir," or a more sullen: "I never touched

the beastly clock!" or even a frank: "I won't do it." I observed

that Penny was taking advantage of the noise to deliver an emotional

sermon, which he accompanied with passionate gestures and concluded

by turning eastward and profanely repeating the ascription: "And now

to God the Father--"

A sudden silence, and every boy sits awkwardly in his place.

Radley's tall figure stood in the room: and the door was being shut

by his hand. I kept my eyes fixed on him. I was changed. I no longer

felt disorderly nor impudent: for disorderliness and impudence in me

were but unnatural efforts to copy Pennybet, that master-fool. I

dropped into my natural self, a thing of shyness and diffidence. I

was not conscious of any ill-will towards Radley for returning to

his class-room, when he was not expected; it was just a piece of bad

fortune for me. I was about to be "whacked," I knew; and, though I

did not move, I felt strange emotions within me. Certainly I was a

little afraid, for Radley whacked harder than they all.

And then, as usual, my brain ran down a wildly irrelevant course. I

reflected that the height of my ambition would be reached, if I

could grow into as tall a man as Radley. My frame, at present, gave

no promise of developing into that of a very tall man; but

henceforth I would do regular physical exercises of a stretching

character, and eschew all evils that retarded the growth. In the

enthusiasm of a new aim, towards which I would start this very day,

I almost forgot my present embarrassing position. Hasty calculations

followed as to how much I would have to grow each year. Let me see,

how old was I? Just thirteen. How many years to grow in?

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

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

Somehow a ready acknowledgment seemed to agree with my latest

ambition.

"Then come and stand out here. You know you ought to be caned, so

you'll thoroughly enjoy it. In fact, being a decent boy, you'd be

miserable without it."

Here Mr. Cæsar, who bore no grudge against Radley for assuming the

reins of command, whispered to him; and Radley asked the class:

"Who touched the clock?"

"I did, sir."

It was Doe's voice.

"Why didn't you say so before?"

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

Radley looked straight into the brown eyes of the boy who was

supposed to be his favourite, and Doe looked back unshiftingly; he

had heard those condemned, who did not look people straight in the

face, and I fancy he rather exaggerated his steady return gaze.

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

Then the foreman of the other boys got up.

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

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

it."

And thereupon, without waiting to be told, Doe left his desk, and

came and stood by me. It was a theatrical action, such as only he

would have done, and our master concealed his surprise, if he felt

any, by an impassive face.

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

directness.

"Certainly," whispered Penny.

Both corners of my mouth went down in a grim resignation. Doe's lips

pressed themselves firmly together, and his eyelids trembled. Mr.

Cæsar, ever generous, looked through the window over green lawns and

flower-beds. Radley went to his cupboard, and took out a cane.

"Bend over, Ray."

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

I bent over, resting my hands on my knees. Radley was a cricketer

with a big reputation for cutting and driving; and three drives,

right in the middle of the cane, convinced me what a first-class

hitter he was. At the fourth, an especially resounding one, Penny

whistled a soft and prolonged whistle of amazement, and murmured:

"Well, _that's_ a boundary, anyway." And I heard suppressed giggles,

and knew that my class-fellows were enjoying the exquisite agony of

forcing back their laughter.

When my performance was over, the second victim, Edgar Doe, with the

steel calm of a French aristocrat, which he affected under

punishment, walked to the spot where I had been operated on. He bent

over (again without being told to do so), and only spoiled his proud

submission by telegraphing to Radley one uncontrolled look of

pathetic appeal like the glance of a faithful dog. Radley, not

noticing these unnerving actions, or possibly a little annoyed by

them, administered justice severely enough for Doe, proud as he was,

to wince slightly at every cut. Then he put his cane away, and

issued, as before, his little ration of gentleness.

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

§4

That night I measured my barefoot height against the dormitory wall,

and made a deep pencil-mark thereon: which done, I reached up to a

great height, and made a mark to represent Radley. After these

preliminaries there was nothing to do but to wait developments. One

practice which aided growth was to lie full-length in bed instead of

curled up. So, after I had cut with nail-scissors the few fair hairs

from my breast and calves, in an endeavour to encourage a plentiful

crop like that which added manliness to Pennybet's darker

form--after this delicate, operation, I got between the sheets, and

straightened out my limbs with a considerable effort of the will.

Later on I forced them down again, when I found that my knees had

once more strayed up to my chin.

Our dormitory at Bramhall House was a long many-windowed room,

containing thirty beds, Edgar Doe's being on my left. He suddenly

made reference to our punishment of the morning.

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

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

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

"If it had been any other master, I'd have been mad with him. Fancy,

practically two whackings in a morning; one on the knuckles and one

on the--and the other. But you can't hate Radley, can you?"

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

There was a pause. But a desire to tell confidences had been

begotten of warm bed and darkness, and my friend soon proceeded:

"It's funny, Rupert, but I like talking to you better than to any of

the other chaps. I feel I can tell you things I wouldn't tell

anybody else. Do you know, I really think I like Radley better than

anyone else in the world. I simply loved being whacked by him."

I pulled the clothes off my head that I might see the extraordinary

creature that was talking to me. A dim light always burned near our

beds, and by it I was able to see that Doe was very red and clearly

wishing he had not made his last remark. My immediate desire, on

witnessing his discomfiture, was to put him at his ease by

pretending that I saw nothing unusual in the words. So I quickly

evolved a very casual question.

"What! Better than your father and mother?"

"Well, you see--" and he shifted uneasily--"you know perfectly well

that my father and mother are dead."

"O law!" I said.

Awkwardly the conversation dropped. And, as I lay upon my pillow,

down went my brain along a line of wandering thoughts. Doe's remark,

I reflected, was like that of a school-girl who adored her mistress.

Perhaps Doe was a girl. After all, I had no certain knowledge that

he wasn't a girl with his hair cut short. I pictured him, then, with

his hair, paler than straw, reaching down beneath his shoulders, and

with his brown eyes and parted lips wearing a feminine appearance.

As I produced this strange figure, I began to feel, somewhere in the

region of my waist, motions of calf-love for the girl Doe that I had

created. But, as Doe's prowess at cricket asserted itself upon my

mind, his gender became conclusively established, and--ah, well, I

was half asleep.

But, so strange were the processes of my childish mind that this

feeling of love at first sight for the girl Doe, who never existed,

I count as one of the strongest forces that helped to create my

later affection for the real Edgar Gray Doe.

"I think you and I must have been intended to come together,

Rupert," I heard him saying later on, as I was fast dozing off. "I

s'pose that's why we were called Doe and Ray."

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

And still later a voice said:

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

From a great distance I heard it, as I listened upon the frontier of

sleep. And, recalling without any effort Radley's words: "There's

nothing like suffering together to cement a friendship," I crossed

the frontier. All coiled up again, my knees nearly touching my chin,

I passed into the country of dreams.

CHAPTER II

RUPERT OPENS A GREAT WAR

§1

Poor Mr. Cæsar, with the weak eyes! He had left his class-room door

unlocked. _Golly_, so he had! And since the bell had only just

ceased to echo, and Mr. Cæsar would certainly be some minutes late,

what was to stop us from conducting a few operations within the

class-room? Under the command of Pennybet, we entered the room and

with due respect lifted the master's large writing-desk from its

little platform, and carried it to the further end of the room. We

left him his armchair, decently disposed upon the platform, thinking

it would be ungenerous to keep him standing through an hour's

lesson.

Then we guiltily stole out of the class-room, closed the door, and

lined up in the corridor, as smartly as a squad of regulars. Aided

by Penny's hand, we right-dressed. We kept our eyes front, heads

erect, and heels together. We braced ourselves up still better when

Mr. Cæsar appeared at the end of the corridor. None of us spoke nor

moved. A few fools like myself giggled nasally, and were promptly

subdued: "Don't spoil it all, you stinking fish!"

On came the gallant Mr. Cæsar, his eyes mutely inquiring the reason

for this ominous quiet. He reached the door with no sign from any of

us that we were aware of a new arrival. He tried the lock with his

key and, after an expression of surprise to find it already turned,

opened the door and walked in. Immediately, in accordance with a

pre-arranged code of signals, Penny dropped _one_ book. We

right-turned. We did it in faultless time, turning as one man, and

each of us bringing his left foot with a brisk stamp on the floor.

Then, a suitable silence having ensued, Penny dropped two books.

Instantly we obeyed. In single file, our left feet stamping

rhythmically, with heads erect and eyes front, we marched after Mr.

Cæsar, and gradually diverged from one another till each man stood

marking time at his particular desk. At this point Penny tripped

over his left heel, and in an unfortunate accident flung all his

books on to the floor. Abruptly, and like machines, we sat down. The

room shook.

It was difficult for our master to know what to do; as there was no

real reason to associate our military movements with Penny's series

of little accidents, and there was certainly no fault to find with

our orderly entry into the class-room. So he did nothing beyond

sadly sweeping us with his eyes. And then he inquired:

"Where's my desk?"

Goodness gracious, where could his great desk be? We got out of our

seats, foreseeing a long search. We began by opening our own desks

and looking inside. Certain high lockers that stood against the wall

we opened. It was in none of them. We pulled ourselves up and looked

along the top of these lockers. It was not there. Penny did three or

four of these "pull-ups" by way of extending his biceps. We looked

along the walls and under the forms. Penny created a little

excitement by declaring that "he thought he saw it then." And Doe

opened the door and looked up and down the corridor.

"It's not anywhere in the corridor," said he. The whole class felt

he might be mistaken, and went to the door to satisfy themselves.

Mr. Cæsar affected a little sarcasm.

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

We turned round and gazed down the direction in which he was

looking. Yes, there was surely something there. Penny flung up his

hand and cried:

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

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

up here--"

If one or two of us would! Why, we all would--all twenty of us. We

took off our coats and, folding them carefully, laid them on the

desks. We rolled up our shirt-sleeves above the elbows, disclosing a

lot of white, childish forearms. We spat on our hands and rubbed

them together. We did a little spitting on one another's hands.

Then we hustled and crowded round the desk. We lifted it off the

ground, brought it a foot or two, and dropped it heavily. Phew! it

was hard work. We took out our handkerchiefs, and wiped the sweat

from our brows. Anyone who had no handkerchief borrowed from someone

who had finished with his. Returning to our task, we carried the

desk a little nearer and dropped it. Doe got a serious splinter in

his hand, and we all pulled it out for him. Puffing and groaning as

we dragged the unwieldy desk, we approached the dais on which it

must be placed. We all stepped upon the dais (slightly incommoding

Mr. Cæsar, who was standing there), and lifted up one end of the

desk so that the pens and pencils rattled inside. One pull, my lads,

and the desk was half on the platform and half on the floor. Leaving

it in this inclined position, we stepped down to the floor again,

and three of us placed our shoulders against the lower end, while

the rest scrummed down, Rugby fashion, in row upon row behind one

another. A good co-operative shove, accompanied by murmurs of

"Coming on your right, forwards; heel it out, whites; break away,

forwards!" and up she went, a diagonal route into the air.

Unfortunately, we all raised our heads at the same time to see how

much further she had to go, and back she tobogganed again on to the

shins of the boys in the front row. They declared they were

henceforth incapacitated for life.

We got it on to the platform at last with a good run, but the

enthusiasm of the back row of scrummers, who apparently thought the

task could not be completed till they were off the floor and on the

platform, was so strong that the desk was pushed much too far, and

toppled over the further side of the platform.

This was too much. My suppressed giggling burst like a grenade into

uncontrolled laughter. Then I said: "I'm sorry, sir."

§2

But this disorder is a strong dish, and we've talked about quite as

much as is good for us. So let us change the hour and visit another

class-room, where there are no rebellions, but nevertheless

arithmetic and trouble--and Ray and Doe and Pennybet. And here is a

dear little master in charge. It is Mr. Fillet, the housemaster of

Bramhall House, where, as you know, we were paying guests--a fat

little man with a bald pate, a soft red face, a pretty little

chestnut beard, and an ugly little stutter in his speech. Bless him,

the dear little man, we called him Carpet Slippers. This was because

one of his two chief attributes was to be always in carpet slippers.

The other attribute was to be always round a corner.

Fillet, or Carpet Slippers, disliked his young boarder, Rupert Ray.

The reason is soon told. One night, when I was out of my bed and

gambolling in pyjamas about the first story of his house, I looked

up the well of the staircase and saw the little shadow of someone

parading the landing above. Thinking it to be a boy, I called out in

a stage-whisper: "Is that old pig, Carpet Slippers, up there?" And a

dear little chestnut beard and a smile came over the balusters,

accompanied by a voice: "Yes, h-h-here he is. Wh-what do you want

with him?"

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

And then in his class-room, this day, I got a sum wrong. I deduced

that in a certain battle "point 64" of a soldier remained wounded on

the field, while "point 36" escaped with the retreating army unhurt.

This did not seem a satisfactory conclusion either to the sum or to

the soldier, and I was not surprised, on looking up the answer, to

find that I was wrong. There were two methods of detecting the

error: one was to work through the sum again, the other was to

submit it to Fillet for revision. The latter seemed the less irksome

scheme, and in a sinister moment--heavens! how pregnant with

consequences it was--I left my desk, approached Carpet Slippers, and

laid the trouble before him.

Now Fillet was in the worst of tempers, having been just incensed by

a boy who had declared that two gills equalled one pint, two pints

one quart, and two quarts one rod, pole, or perch. So, when I

brought my sum up and giggled at the answer, he looked at me as if

he neither liked me nor desired that I should ever like him. Then he

indulged in cheap sarcasms. This he was wont to do, and, after

emitting them through his silky beard, he would draw in his breath

through parted teeth, as a child does when it has the taste of

peppermint in its mouth.

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

g-g-guttersnipe could. I-I-I-I--"

This was so much like what they yell from a fire-engine that, though

I struggled hard, I could not contain a giggle.

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

He got it wrong, which elicited a bursting giggle from me. Fillet

turned on me like a barking dog.

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

Surprised at Fillet's taking it to heart in this way, I went, much

abashed, to my seat, and tried to control my fit of giggling. But it

so possessed me that finally it made a very horrible noise in my

nose. Carpet Slippers raised his little head that was a hybrid

between a peach and a billiard ball--a peach as to the face, and a

billiard ball as to the cranium--and when he saw me sitting with

lips tightly set and my desk trembling with my internal laughter,

anger put a fresh coating of red upon both peach and ball. But he

took no action at present.

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

Getting up, he turned his back on us and, facing the board, wrote

with his chalk the number 10. Now, as he wrote on a level with his

eyes, his fat little head quite eclipsed his writing. So, simply to

show that I was no longer laughing, I called out loudly:

"What number, sir?"

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

tomato.

"What number? I-I'll t-teach you to ask 'what number' when I've

written '10' on the board. I-I've heard what you do in other

class-rooms. D-don't think you're going to introduce your

hooliganism here. Go and ask the p-porter to let me have a cane."

The boys pricked up their ears and looked at me. Penny let his jaw

drop in amazement and, leaving his mouth open, maintained an

expression like that of the village idiot. I stared, flabbergasted,

into Carpet Slippers' face.

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

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

"But, sir--" And then, like a cloud, sullen obstinacy came down upon

me. I was certain that he had been longing for an excuse to flog me.

The pride and the relish of the martyr supported me as, without

telling him that his head had obstructed my view, I walked out to do

my message.

Finding the porter in his office, I politely inquired if he could

spare a cane for Mr. Fillet; and, at my query, he grinned--the

blithering idiot. The cane that he handed me I took, and, being at

that moment a youngster who wouldn't have let his spirits sink for

all the Fillets in the world, I offered back the cane and suggested:

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

"Quite sure, sir."

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

it?"

"Quite sure, sir."

"Well, don't you think that, for a man of your age, you look rather

a fool standing up there and saying 'Quite sure' to everything

that's said to you? Don't you think it's rather a fat and silly

thing to do?"

I put it to him as man to man.

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

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

On my way back I stayed to admire the classical busts and statues

that lined the deserted corridors like exhibits in a museum. All the

life-size ones I whacked with my cane. I took a wistful pleasure in

giving the naked ones two good strokes each. As I drew near the

class-room door I certainly felt uncomfortable, for I knew Fillet

intended to sting. But my sense of martyrdom carried me through. I

gathered my dignity about me and knocked heavily on the door.

Annoyed that my hand had trembled and spoilt the effect, I opened

the door briskly and shut it briskly. With a calm step and fearless

look, both studied, for I copied Doe in these matters, I walked

towards Carpet Slippers. The little man was pretending he had

forgotten all about me, while really he had prepared a sarcasm with

which to poison my wounds.

"Oh, indeed. You've b-been a long time gone; but thrashings are like

good wine--they improve with keeping."

He sucked in his breath with satisfaction.

"Yes, sir," replied I. If there was any trembling about me it was

inside and not visible.

He took the cane from my hand and examined its effectiveness. Then,

intending a pretty little jest, he faced the class and commanded:

"St-stand out, that boy who asked the number of the sum after I had

put it on the board."

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

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

Pennybet, who all this time had kept his mouth agape and

impersonated the village idiot, laid down his pen, closed his book,

and disposed himself to watch out the matter. He was always callous

when in pursuit of his object; and his object now was to suck the

humour out of my painful position. He put his elbow on the desk,

rested his head at a graceful angle on the palm of his hand, and

half closed his Arab eyes. He looked like an earnest parson posing

for a photograph.

Our engaging little master, having bent me over and arranged me for

punishment, gave me ten strokes instead of the usual six--the number

of the sum had been "ten."

When I rose from my bended posture, how I hated Carpet Slippers, and

was happy in my hate! I hated the silkiness of his chestnut beard; I

hated the sheen of his pink cranium; I hated his soft rotundity and

his little curvilinear features; I hated, above all, his poisonous

speeches. As I walked to my seat, my body stinging still, I resolved

to go to war with Fillet. I declared with all a child's power of

make-believe that a state of war existed between Rupert Ray and

Carpet Slippers. War, then, war, open or understood!

And when that class closed, no boy was more forcedly loud and lively

than I: no boy shut his books with greater claps; no boy banged his

desk more carelessly. Nor would I listen to sympathising friends,

but laughed out in Fillet's hearing: "You don't think I care, do

you?"

Fillet noticed my ostentatious display of indifference and perhaps

felt apprehensive of the latent devil that he had aroused, but his

inward comment, I doubt not, was: "We'll see who's going to be

master here. He can feel the weight of my hand again, if he likes.

We can't let a bad-spirited little boy have all his own way. I think

we'll break his defiance. I think we will." And possibly, as he said

it, he sucked in his breath with satisfaction. Fillet realised that

it was War and the first shots had been exchanged.

§3

This was the preliminary skirmish. Real and bloody battle was joined

twenty-four hours later. But, in the meantime, there was an

early-evening lull which enclosed a delightful cricket match. A team

of junior Kensingtonians, that included Doe and myself, was going

across Kensingtowe High Road to play the First Eleven of the

Preparatory School, an academy flippantly known as the "Nursery,"

its boys being "Suckers." Edgar Doe had been a certain choice.

Brought up in the midst of a great cricketing family, the Grays of

Surrey tradition, in his beautiful Falmouth home which boasted

cricket pitches of its own, he was as polished a bat as the Nursery

had ever known. I came to be selected as a promising change-bowler.

We were walking in our flannels towards the Nursery gates, when Doe,

referring with bad taste to the Fillet incident just closed, began

to chastise me with his cricket bat. I returned the treatment with a

pair of pads. So we went along, full in the public view, each trying

to "get in a good one" on the other. I managed to knock Doe's bat

out of his hand, and, as he stooped to pick it up, he received my

pads upon his person. This was actually in the middle of the High

Street. He laughed loudly, and crying "O you young beast!" started

to belabour me with his fists. Suddenly we stopped, let our hands

fall to our sides, and began to walk like nuns in a cloister. Radley

had joined us.

"If you're so anxious to whack each other," said he pleasantly,

"won't you commission me to do it in both cases?"

We grinned sheepishly and said nothing. My mind formulated the

sentence "Good Lord, no!" and, quickly constructing what would have

happened had I uttered it aloud, I tittered uncomfortably and looked

away. There was an awkward pause as we walked along with our master

between us.

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

great batsman?"

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

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

Doe could find nothing to say in reply, but lifted up his face and

looked at Radley with the gratitude of a dog. For my part I felt a

pleasing, squirmy excitement to think that we were to walk on to the

Nursery field in the company of the great Middlesex amateur; and,

incidentally, I took the opportunity of measuring myself against

him.

We arrived on the ground, creating less sensation than I would have

liked. Radley took a deck-chair in front of the pavilion next to Dr.

Chapman, or "Chappy," surely the stoutest and jolliest of school

doctors. The fact that Chappy, occupying so withdrawn a position as

medical officer to the two schools, should have been such a

memorable figure in the life of the boys testifies to the largeness

of his personality. And, not being the most modest of stout and

hearty doctors, he was always willing himself to testify to the

largeness of his personality. He dearly loved cricket, he would tell

you, for he had been a cricketer himself and seen many worse; and he

dearly loved boys, for he had been a boy himself and never seen any

worse: so, where there was a boys' cricket match, there, old man,

you would find Dr. Chapman. Besides, when boys played cricket, it

was well to have a doctor on the field, and he was a doctor and had

never met a better. Would you have a cigar? All tobacco, in his

opinion, led to the overthrow of body and soul--believe him; it

did--but you would never see him without a cigar. Not he!

Such was Chappy, the medicine man. He was right, about the cigar. As

I figure him in my mind, the things that I immediately associate

with his stout, jolly presence are a chewed cigar drooping from his

mouth and a huge white waistcoat soiled by the tumbled ash. I sum

him up as a genial soul whose religion was to seek comfort, to find

popularity a comfortable thing, and to love popularity among young

things as the most comfortable of all. And, if that last dogma of

his be not Heaven's truth, then my outlook on life is all wrong, and

this book's a failure!

As Radley placed his muscular frame in the deck-chair, Chappy

greeted him with these regrettable remarks: "Hallo, Radley, aren't

you dead yet? How the devil are you? My word, how you've grown!"

The match started, Doe and our captain opening the Kensingtowe

innings. I left the other boys and lay down upon the grass a little

behind Radley's chair. Converging reasons led me there: one--I

desired that my old friends, the Suckers, should know of my intimacy

with S.T. Radley, of Middlesex; two--I felt Chappy's conversation

would certainly be entertaining; and three--I should soon have to go

in to bat, and was feeling too nervous to talk to offensively happy

boys who were unworried by such imminent publicity.

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

Dr. Chapman.

Chappy turned in his chair, which creaked alarmingly, and composed

himself to talk comfortably.

"Oh, the Gray Doe--yes, charming little squirt--best bat the Nursery

had last year. And, though nobody but myself recognised it, the Gem

was the best bowler."

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

"Don't you know the Gem? Why, Ray, the little snipe with eyes

something between a diamond and a turquoise. The ladies here called

him 'The Gem' because of this affliction. He'd be a great bowler,

only he's too shy."

At this point I rolled on to my stomach so as to appear unaware of

their conversation, which was even more entertaining than I had

hoped. Radley turned round and, having seen me, said something in an

undertone to Chappy. I imagine he drew attention to my proximity,

for Chappy laughed out: "O law! Glory be!" and continued in a lower

voice.

My sense of honour was not so nice that it prevented me from trying

to catch the rest of their conversation. They had opened so

promisingly: and now Chappy was getting quite enthusiastic, and the

rapid motion of his lips was causing the cigar to be so restless

that it constantly changed its position and scattered ash down his

expanse of white waistcoat. I had no need, however, to strain my

ears, for Chappy was incapable of speaking softly for any length of

time. I caught him proceeding:

"He's clever, his masters say, and got a big future. Handsome little

rogue, too. He's none of your ordinary boys. He's a twig from the

cedar-top."

For two reasons--first, that this was a fine rhetorical flourish on

which to close; and secondly, that his breath was giving out--Chappy

concluded his remarks, swept his waistcoat, and re-arranged his

position in the deck-chair. I was feeling horribly anxious lest I

should die without knowing whether it was of Doe or of me that he

had spoken, when Radley cleared up the matter by saying:

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

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

all that.

"Straight bat, rather!" agreed Chappy.

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

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

"Why, he seems to be a bit of an actor--to do things because he

wants to appear in a favourable light."

"I say, that's doocid ungenerous of you," said Chappy. "And, by

jove, if he likes to imagine himself very noble and heroic, and

tries to act accordingly, very fine of him."

"Very," endorsed Radley, cryptically.

"I've a great liking for him."

"So have I."

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

virtues?"

"Neither. His vices."

"Here, hang me, Radley," said Chappy, "you want examining. You're

not only a shocking bad conversationalist, but also a little mad.

That's your doctor's opinion; that'll be a guinea, please."

After this I ceased to listen. The talk was all about Doe, and

rather silly. And I wanted to think over the little fact, which

Chappy had let fall, that certain ladies called me the "Gem." I

chewed a blade of grass and ruminated. That flattering little

disclosure balanced the weight of Fillet's dislike. I wished it

could be brought to his knowledge; and I imagined conversations in

which he was told. This was the first time that it dawned upon me

that there was anything in my looks to admire. Pennybet I conceived

to be dark and handsome, Doe fair and pretty, and myself drab and

plain. But now I got up and took myself, completely thrilled, to a

mirror in the changing room to have a look at these same eyes. I was

prepared for something good. The result was that I became almost

sick with disappointment. A close examination showed them to be

quite commonplace. I could not really detect that they were blue. I

even thought they looked a little foolish. And, as I gazed at them,

they certainly turned very sad.

I strolled back to the pavilion just as a burst of applause

announced a fine drive by Doe.

"Oh, pretty stroke!" shouted Chappy, sprinkling quantities of ash.

"Pretty play! By jove, the little fool's a genius!"

"He may be a genius of some other sort," said Radley, "but he's not

a genius at cricket. Look at his diffidence in the treatment of

swift balls. He's a cricketer _made_, not born. He has imagination

and a sense of artistic effect, and a natural grace--that's all.

They'll make him a poet, perhaps, but not a cricketer."

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

All that Doe did then was to direct the ball with perfect ease

between Point and Short Slip and to glance quickly towards the

pavilion to see if the stroke had been noticed. The sight of him

batting there made me feel another squirmy sensation at the thought

that he was my especial friend. He had given, I recall, his grey hat

to the umpire to hold, and the wind was playing with his hair. His

shirt-sleeves were rolled up, showing arms smooth and round like a

woman's.

Just then, however, my attention was attracted by a new arrival. The

boy Freedham, having listlessly wandered across from Kensingtowe,

slouched on to the Nursery playground. He was a tall, weedy youth of

sixteen; and the unhealthiness of his growth was shown by the long,

graceless neck, the spare chest, and the thin wrists. There was a

weakness, too, at his knees which caused me to think that they had

once worked on springs which now were broken. But the greatest

abnormality was seen in his eyes. Startlingly large, startlingly

bright, they were sometimes beautiful and always uncanny.

This Freedham, with his slack gait and carriage, strolled towards a

railing and, resting both elbows on it, watched Doe at his cricket.

The whole picture is very clear on my mind. A sunny afternoon seemed

to have forgotten the time and only just made up its mind to merge

into a mellow evening: the boys, watching the game, were sending

their young and lively sounds upon the air; those of the smaller

cattle, whose interest had waned, were engaging with the worst taste

in noisy French cricket: the flannelled figures of the players, with

their wide little chests, neat waists, and round hips, promised fine

things for the manhood of England ten years on: at the wicket stood

the attractive figure of Edgar Doe in an occupation very congenial

to him--that of shining: and Chappy had just said: "I say, Radley,

don't you think this generation of boys is the most shapely lot

England has turned out? I wonder what use she'll make of them," when

he saw Freedham's entry and opened a new conversation.

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

"Shocking specimen."

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

"Doctor be damned!" answered Chappy. "He's no more a doctor than a

Quaker's a Christian. Old Freedham's surgery is a bally schism-shop.

He's one of those homoeopathic Johnnies, and would be blackballed on

societies of which I'm a vice-president. You know--just as I can

never go into dissenting chapels without feeling certain of the

presence of evil spirits--my wife says it's the stuffiness of the

atmosphere, but I say: 'No, my dear, it's evil spirits; I know

what's evil spirits and what's bad air'--well, just so I could never

go into old Freedham's--but I'm not likely to be asked.

Doctor--bah!"

And Chappy flung away the moist and masticated end of his cigar and

all such nonsensical ideas with it. Then he took a new cigar from

his case, proceeding:

"And the man's not only a nonconformist in the Medicine Creed, but

he's actually a deacon in a Presbyterian chapel--or something

equally heathen--and a fluent one at that, I expect. I make a point

of never trusting those people. Look at his sickening son and heir

yonder. Did you ever see an orthodox doctor produce a cockchafer

like that? That's homoeopathy, that is--"

And Chappy flourished his new cigar towards Freedham.

Doe, too, had seen Freedham's entry, and some sign of recognition

passed between them. The next ball came swiftly and threateningly

down upon the leg side, and Doe, perhaps with the nervousness

consequent upon the arrival of a new critic before whom he would

fain do well, stepped back. A shout went up as it was seen that the

ball had taken the leg bail. Doe looked flurried at this sudden

dismissal and a bit upset. He involuntarily shot a glance at

Freedham and after some hesitation left the crease. He rather

dragged his bat and drooped his head as he walked to the pavilion,

till, realising that this might be construed into an ungracious

acceptance of defeat, he brought his head erect and swung his bat

with a careless freedom.

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

Chappy didn't hear. He was taken up in applauding the stylish

innings of the retiring batsman, and swearing he would stand the boy

a liquor.

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

you can't. So there!"

Doe entered blushing and stood nervously by an empty chair near

Radley, who read his meaning and said: "Sit there, if you like."

My friend put the chair very close to his hero and, having sat in

it, began to remove his pads. I think Radley was pleased with this

action and liked having the worshipping youth beside him. The fall

of Doe's wicket had brought my innings nearer and started a fresh

attack of stage-fright. In my agitation movement seemed imperative.

So I came and reclined on the ground by Edgar, intruding myself on

his notice by asking:

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

Edgar heard my question, and his lips fumbled with a reply. The face

that he turned upon me was a deep plum-pink from recent running and

surmounted with fair hair whose disordered ends were darkened with

moisture.

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

you?"

This remark was sufficiently discouraging to impel me on to my feet

and to send me to districts where I should be less unpopular. I

conceived the idea of examining Freedham at nearer range. Perhaps I

was jealous of him. Though as yet I had no unordinary love for Doe,

I had a sense of proprietorship in him which was quickened the

minute it was disturbed. So I moored myself on the railing about

three yards from Freedham. This could easily be managed, Freedham

being one of those boys who were always alone. For a little I

pretended to watch the game and then stole a furtive, sideways

glance at his lank profile. I had immediate cause to wish I had done

nothing of the sort, for he turned his unholy eyes on mine and so

disconcerted me that I swung my face back upon the cricket field and

affected complete indifference. I even hummed a little ditty to show

that if any mind was free from the designs of the private detective,

mine was. But my acting was not made easier by the certainty that

Freedham's eyes were steadily examining my burning cheek. And, if it

be possible to see a question in eyes which you are only imagining,

I saw in Freedham's: "What the blazes do you want?" After giving him

time to forget me, I turned again to look at him. But once more I

caught his weird orbs full upon mine, and muttering. "Oh, dash!"

concentrated my attention on the cricket.

A few minutes later the heavy wooden rail on which I was leaning

began to vibrate horribly. I looked in alarm at Freedham. He was

standing rigid, as though sudden death had stiffened him upright.

His left hand was grasping the railing, and through this channel an

electric trembling of his whole frame had communicated itself to the

wood. His face was unnaturally red, and his right hand had passed

over his heart which it was pressing. His eyes were fixed on the

cricket match.

My first sensation, I confess, was one of pride at being the boy to

discover Freedham in what appeared to be a fit. I went quickly to

him and said: "I say, Freedham. Freedham, what's the matter?"

"N-nothing," he replied, still stiff and trembling. "But it's

all--right. I shall be quite--fit again in a minute. Don't look at

me."

"But shall I get you water or something?"

"No. It's all right. I've had these attacks before. In class

sometimes and--I've conquered them, and--no one's known anything

about them. So don't tell anyone about this. Promise."

It cost me something to throw away the prospect of telling this

thrilling story of which I had exclusive information, but the man in

pain is master of us all, so I readily promised.

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

Though some years his junior, I said it much as a mother would

soothe a frightened child to sleep.

"Thanks awfully," said Freedham gratefully.

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

him?"

"No, damn you!" cried my patient with extraordinary conviction.

"Can't you mind your own infernal business and leave me to mind

mine?"

This was so rude that I felt quite justified in leaving him to mind

his own infernal business, whatever it might be. I strolled away.

Now, with this interesting performance of Freedham's, my desire to

describe this cricket match ends. There was a hot finish, but, in

spite of some fortunate overs from myself, the Suckers won. The last

wicket down, Chappy got out of his deck-chair with a sudden

quickness which suggested that such was the only method of

successfully getting his fat self upon his feet; and, when he had

shaken down his white waistcoat and said: "Bye-bye, Radley. Reg'lar

meals, no smoke, and you may grow into a fine lad yet," carried

himself off with the awkward leg-work of a heavy-bodied man,

cheerily acknowledging the greetings of the little Sucker boys, and

prodding the fattest of them in the ribs. Radley strolled away,

followed by the wondering looks of boys who were told that this big

man was S.T. Radley, of Middlesex. Freedham, quite recovered,

returned to his day-boy roof among the endless roofs of Kensingtowe

Town. And I plied homeward to Bramhall House, depressed by the

prospect of Preparation for the rest of the evening, and by the

restored consciousness of Fillet's hostility, which, forgotten

during the cricket match, now came back upon me like a sense of

foreboding.

CHAPTER III

AWFUL ROUT OF RAY

§1

The following afternoon I was looking rather glumly out of a window

at the broad playing fields which, in the greyness of a rainy day,

seemed as deserted as myself. From my place I could see nearly all

the red-brick wall that surrounds Kensingtowe grounds; I could see

the iron railings which, at long intervals, break the monotony of

the wall. Now the railings of Kensingtowe, like all places with sad

memories, have an honourable place in my heart.

Naturally it was a rule, strictly enforced, that boys must make

their exit from the fields by going through the Bramhall gate rather

than over the railings. Naturally, too, this rule was sometimes

disregarded, for the architect, whom I deem a desirable soul, had

made the passage over the railings invitingly possible by means of

some well-placed cross-pieces, which he sketched into his designs,

saying (I imagine): "We shall have the lads climbing over at this

point--well, God bless 'em--I hope they're not caught and whopped

for it." Right at the farthest corner of the field was the Bramhall

gate, which--But the Bramhall gate needn't interest us: _we_ leave

by the railings.

The noise of a footstep disturbing the gravel caused me to look

down. A boy, hatless, ran across to the wall and walked guiltily

beneath it till he reached the railings. The fairness of his hair

arrested my attention. And, while I was wondering what any boy might

be doing hatless in the rain, my friend Doe had grasped the

railings, pulled himself to their top, and dropped on to the

pavement beyond.

Now, my dear Watson, here was a case of exceptional interest. In all

the annals of criminal investigation I know of none that presented

possibilities more bizarre, none that called more urgently for the

subtlest qualities of the private detective. I rushed out of the

building, letting doors slam behind me. Quickly I reached the

railings, raised myself to the top, and glanced down the road in

time to see Doe join the lank and sinister figure of Freedham at the

corner.

But alas! just over the road was Bramhall House, Fillet's own

kingdom, and even at that moment I saw a bald head emerge from its

central doorway. A feeling that was partly terror and partly temper

manacled me to the top of the railings; and after a few tense

seconds I was gazing fascinated into a little bearded face which was

staring with interest up at me. It was Carpet Slippers, and he may

be said to have been round a corner.

"Oh, dash!" I muttered. And then, as I stared down at him, thinking

it right that he, by virtue of his seniority, should open the

conversation, I gradually began to feel better, for I remembered

that it was War.

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

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

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

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, indeed."

When I saw that he was trifling with me, I determined that he should

know it was War. Defiantly I answered:

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

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

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

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

"Ah! you do, do you? Well, wh-when you 'ultimately' come down, you

will go straight to my study."

"Delighted, sir." The blood rushed to my face as I realised my own

impudence, but I was glad that I had said it.

Fillet went his way, and I came down from my railing, combating the

sickening certainty that I had made a fool of myself, and

determining to believe in the splendour of my attitude and to carry

it through to victory. Carry on, Rupert, carry on. Onward, Christian

soldiers.

I sauntered over to Bramhall House and climbed the stairs to the

house-master's study. Hearing Fillet grunt at my knock, I walked in

to execution.

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

"I believe so, sir."

"Oh, indeed. Then you shall write five hundred lines of Cicero.

You'll play no games till they're done."

Five hundred Latin lines! God! I had nerved myself for physical

punishment, but for nothing so dreadful as this. This meant long

days of confinement with hard, hard labour. A great mass of tears

rose from somewhere and came dangerously near the surface. But I

kept them down and tried to show, though there was a catch in my

voice, that I was still unbroken.

"Yes, sir. Anything further?"

"Yes indeed." Carpet Slippers sucked in his breath. "A further

hundred lines. P-p-perhaps that'll teach you that rebellion is

expensive."

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

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

Mentally stunned and bleeding, but ready to do battle with the Day

of Judgment itself, I retorted:

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

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

thousand in all."

And at that point I shamefully broke off the fight. It wasn't

fair--he had all the artillery. I held back the tears, fast

gathering in volume, and gave up the unequal contest. One day my own

guns would come. Quite respectfully I said "Yes, sir," and walked

out. The vanguard of that mighty array of tears had forced its way

as far as my eyes, which felt suspiciously moist. In fact, as I shut

the door and found myself alone--absolutely alone--they nearly came

forth in full cataract. But I saved the situation by thinking hard

of other things and whistling loudly.

I went to an open window in the corridor and, looking out, saw that

the sun had just dispelled the rain. The railings of Kensingtowe

over the roadway were still burnished and glistening with wet, as

were the leaves of shrubs and trees. And the air that touched my

cheek was all soft and sweet-smelling after rain. Resting my elbows

on the window-sill, I told myself that I hated Carpet Slippers;

that I hated Doe and it was all his fault; that I wouldn't do the

lines--I wouldn't do them; that I didn't care if I was expelled;

Kensingtowe was a beastly school, and Bramhall was its filthiest

house.

The sound of a step in the corridor behind me arrested my thoughts.

I leaned farther out of the window and muttered: "Oh, I hope he

won't speak to me. I hope he'll pass by. I hate him, whoever he is.

O God, make him pass by," for I knew there was a moisture in my

eyes. I hurriedly held them wide open, that they might dry in the

sun.

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

In a second he had laid violent hands on me and swung me round, so

that I was held facing him.

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

It seems, as I recall it, a fine sentence, but at that moment, when

I wanted to be a wild ass among men, it was a _lie_. The hot blood

flooded my forehead. "I'm _not_ crying!" I snapped, keeping my face

upturned, my eyes fixed on his, and my teeth firmly set, that he

might see that he had lied.

"No, of course you're not. But come, now, Ray, what's the matter?

Out with it! There's nobody but me to hear you. And I understand."

I didn't want him to speak kindly to me, for I hated him. So I said

in a rapid, trembling voice:

"I've got a thousand lines from Mr. Fillet. I didn't deserve them

and I'm not going to do them!"

Immediately I felt that a catastrophe had occurred--that an edifice,

which had been standing a second ago, was now no more. Before that

sentence I had faced a kindly friend, now I faced an offended

master. But, though I knew the ruin my words had wrought, I indulged

a glow of self-righteousness and was prepared to relate my defiance

to an approving world.

"Come with me," commanded Radley. Swinging round, he walked towards

his room. At first I remained at the window without moving, and

waited for him to turn his head and tell me a second time to come.

But he walked on, never entertaining the thought of my not obeying

him. And I followed, armed with indifference. It was a pity that

walking behind him should give me so fine a view of his splendid

proportions and inflate me with strange aspirations, for I hated the

man and _wanted_ to do so. I hated him--let no other thought replace

that.

He led me to his room and said "Come in." I entered and, when I had

closed the door, looked aimlessly about, taking little interest in

the suggestive fact that Radley was opening a cupboard. There was

little change in my countenance when he placed himself opposite me

with his cane in his hand.

"You have been very rude to me in speaking defiantly of your

house-master. Do you understand?"

There was no alternative for me but to say "Yes, sir." The answer

came huskily. I was annoyed that my voice sounded hoarse.

"Put out your hand."

I obeyed, stretching out my right hand as far as I could and

displaying no perturbation, though I was wondering what it would be

like to be caned on the hand. This was one of Radley's surprises,

and he followed it with one of his brutal remarks:

"Put that right hand down. You'll need it to be in good condition

for writing your lines. Put up your left."

I held out my left hand. The cane sang in the air and whistled on to

my open palm. A spasm of pain passed up my arm, my hand closed

convulsively, my elbow drooped, and that vast array of tears made a

tremendous effort to carry everything before them. But with all the

strength at my command I got the better of them. Angry at having

closed my hand, I extended the scorching palm again, and, very pale

and trembling perceptibly, looked with set features straight at

Radley.

He threw the cane away and, sitting on the edge of his table, took

hold of the hand that he had struck and drew me towards him.

"Don't you think, Ray, that you, who can take a licking so pluckily,

ought to face bad luck in a less cowardly fashion than you have this

afternoon? You'll meet worse things than lines before you're ten

years older; and, Ray, I want you always to face your fate, whatever

it may be, as you faced my cane--teeth set, no wincing."

It was a stroke of master play. His gentleness, following

immediately upon his severity, burst the dam. His words were an

"Open Sesame" to the leaky floodgates I had held so tightly closed.

I hung my head and the huge throng of tears broke forth. Wo-ho, what

a cascade! My eyes overflowed with salt tears and my nose wanted

wiping. Oh, waly, waly. Radley seemed indisposed to let go of my

left hand, so I was compelled to search for my handkerchief with my

right. After sounding the depths of four pockets, I found it, a

singularly dirty one, in the fifth. And, while great internal sobs

shook my frame with the regularity of minute-guns, Radley spoke so

nicely that I determined I would be everything he wanted, a really

beautiful character--always providing that it didn't interfere with

my war with Fillet. For one day--one great and distant day--I would

terribly overthrow that little old pantaloon.

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

you."

I looked up and smiled. "Thank you very much, sir," and I

unconsciously pressed his hand.

"Doe is your friend. We'll test his metal and see whether he thinks

friendship is something more than getting into scrapes together." He

touched a bell. "I'll send for him."

I gave a sudden shiver. Doe was out in the world with Freedham,

probably without an "exeat," and certainly without a hat. I began to

wonder whether by a dramatic _dénouement_ I was to be the cause of

Doe's capture.

"You rang, sir?" inquired the manservant.

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

"Yes, sir." The door closed, and it was too late. Too late for what?

I was sure I didn't know, for there was nothing I could have done to

prevent the search for Doe. Late emotion had left, I suppose, my

imagination in an overwrought state. And I had reason to wonder if I

was moving in a dream, when, after a knock at the door, Doe walked

in, his eyes sparkling at having been sent for by the object of his

worship.

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

"This life's mostly froth and bubble.

Two things stand like stone:

Kindness in another's trouble,

Courage in your own.

Ray's just got a thousand lines of Cicero. But he understands all

about 'courage in your own,' and you understand all about 'kindness

in another's trouble.'"

"Yes, sir," agreed Doe, a bit bewildered, but instantly prepared to

live up to this noble reputation.

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

"Rather, sir. I'll dictate them.... Besides, sir," he added, as if

this explained everything, "Ray and I are twins."

§2

And not a game did Doe play until he had dictated all those lines.

It occupied a week and two days. When I dropped my pen, having

written the last word, the relief of thinking that I had no more

lines to write was almost painful. I felt suddenly ill. My loins,

aching alarmingly, reminded me that I had been in a sitting posture

for many a weary hour; and my fingers, suffering from what I judged

to be rheumatism or gout, fidgeted to go on writing. My mind, too,

was confused so that I found myself repeating whole lines of Cicero,

sometimes aloud; and my face was pale, save for a dangerous pink

flush on the forehead.

Life, however, seemed brightened by the sense of a task completed,

and I began to think of someone else besides myself.

"I say, Doe," I asked, "aren't you going to tell me where you were

going when you joined that knock-kneed idiot Freedham?"

"No," announced Doe.

"But look here," I began, and was just about to tell him that

Freedham was an unwholesome creature who had mysterious fits like a

demoniac, when I remembered my promise of silence: so I went on

lamely: "You will tell me one day, won't you?"

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

"But, my darling blighter, why not?"

"Because I don't choose to."

"Then you're a pig. But you might, Doe. Out with it. There's nobody

but me to hear you. And I understand."

"No."

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

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

the sun came out, I came in."

It was a romantic sentence such as would delight this rudimentary

poet. Why he condescended to break his mighty silence even to this

extent, I don't know. It was perhaps a boyish love of hinting at a

secret which he mustn't disclose. An awful idea struck me. I say it

was awful because, though stirring in itself, it brought the thought

that I was left out of it.

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

"No."

"Here, hang me, Doe," I said, "you're not only a shocking bad

conversationalist, but also a little mad. That's your doctor's

opinion. That'll be a guinea, please."

And I got up to take the lines to Fillet.

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

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

"I say," he stuttered, "you--you might just mention to Radley that I

dictated _all_ the lines. It would sort of--I mean--Oh, but you

needn't, if you don't want to."

§3

That night there happened in Bramhall House one of those strange

events that are best chronicled in a few cold sentences. That night,

I say, while honest men and boys slept, Mr. Fillet sat up in bed and

listened. He distinctly heard movements in his study below. Jumping

up, he slided into his carpet slippers and crept downstairs. There

was a light in his study. He looked round the half-open door and saw

the back view of a boy in pyjamas. The whole incident is much too

sinister for me to remind you frivolously that little Carpet

Slippers was once again round his corner. He began: "Wh-what are you

doing?" and the boy at once did what any properly constituted

midnight visitor should do--switched off the electric light. When

Mr. Fillet, with a heart going like a motor engine, found the switch

and flooded the room with light, there was, of course, no one there.

But on his writing-table lay his cane, broken into pieces, and my

own copy of the thousand lines torn into little bits.

CHAPTER IV

THE PREFECTS GO OVER TO THE ENEMY

§1

What more exciting than for the whole school to learn by rumour the

next morning that all the prefects of Bramhall House had been

mysteriously withdrawn from their Olympian class-rooms to a special

cabinet meeting under the presidency of Stanley, the gorgeous

house-captain? Clearly some awful crime had been committed at

Bramhall, and there would be a public whacking and an expulsion. We

humans may or may not be brutal, but life is certainly more

stimulating when there is an execution in the air.

Chattering, prophesying, and wondering who was the criminal, we

found our way to our various class-rooms. It being First Period,

Doe, Penny, and I were under Radley's stern rule and obliged to sit

quietly in our desks, knowing that he would allow no more licence on

this exciting day than on any other. Our heads were bent over our

work when Bickerton, the junior prefect of Bramhall, entered the

room, approached the master's desk, and spoke in an undertone to

Radley.

I saw--for I was gazing at the new arrival over my work--Radley look

astonished, and turn his eyes in my direction.

"Ray."

"Yes, sir."

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

I remember the universal flutter of excitement and surprise; I

remember Doe raising his head like a startled deer as I went out and

shut the door; I remember catching, from outside, Radley's sharp

rebuke, "Get on with your work." His voice sounded strangely

distant, and seemed to be on the happier side of a closed door.

Bickerton, who was enjoying himself, walked in front; and I followed

behind, bringing my attention to bear upon keeping in step.

Rearranging my stride now and then, I marched through the empty

corridors, listening to the drone of masters' voices teaching in

their class-rooms, and wondering at the loudness of our footsteps.

The sight of the prefects' door gave me my first sense of fear.

Being a prefect and thus mightily privileged, Bickerton turned the

door-handle of the room without knocking. It was like laying a hand

upon the Ark. Into the holy place Doe and I had passed before, not

as prisoners, but as patronised pets who were suffered to amuse the

august tenants with our "lip" until we became too disrespectful,

when we would be ejected with a kick. This morning it struck strange

and cold to hear Bickerton say:

"Here's the little bounder."

I entered, and saw the whole array of Bramhall prefects assembled,

Stanley, their senior, presiding. Bickerton shut the door

ceremoniously.

There were twelve of them, and every man was a blood. They had

reached a solemn age and, in the dignity of their bloodhood, were

quite unaware that they were playing at a mock-trial and enjoying

it. I'm sure none of them would have missed it. Were Stanley alive

now, instead of lying beneath the sea off Gallipoli, he would be

twenty-seven years of age, very junior in his profession, and

therefore much younger than when he was a house-captain of nineteen:

and he would admit that on this famous occasion he and his

fellow-prefects were highly pleased with the transaction entrusted

to them. For at twenty-seven we are people who have been old and now

are young again.

His team sat down two sides of a long table, and himself was

enthroned at the top in front of foolscap and blotting-paper. It was

a splendid tribunal.

I tried to persuade myself that I was perfectly comfortable, and

could, if need be, show my easy conscience by a little old-time

impudence. In reality my heart was fluttering, and a perspiration

had broken out upon my head and the palms of my hands. My brows I

wiped on my sleeve, and my hands I rubbed on the seat of my

trousers. Nor had I lost the headache which asserted itself directly

my long imposition was done. My forehead felt as if it had swollen

and extended the skin across it like elastic. And for the last

twelve hours my face had been warm and burning.

"Now, Rupert Ray," said Stanley, "we want you to own up to this

blooming business of last night. So fire away."

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

"Now don't be sulky. You'll only make matters worse by trying to

bluff us. And goodness knows they're bad enough as it is."

"Oh, to think how we've been disappointed in you!" interposed

Bickerton, who had taken up a position on the fender. "To think how

we've cherished this viper in our bosom!" And he raised his hands in

mock despair.

"Now don't be an ass, Bicky," said Stanley, who deemed that a Court

of Inquiry over which he presided was much too weighty an affair to

be approached with levity; "it's no joking matter. The kid's in a

beastly mess, and, when he owns up, we must try to get him off as

lightly as possible. I think perhaps we've let this youth and his

chum, the Gray Doe, get too cheeky, and to that extent we're to

blame.... Now, Ray, answer me some questions. Did you get a thousand

lines from our revered housemaster, Carpet--Mr. Fillet?"

"Yes."

"When did you complete them?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"In short, on the afternoon immediately preceding the tragedy which

took place in the microscopic hours of this morning?"

"Yes, I s'pose so."

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

"I'm bothered if I see why."

"My dear child, you really mustn't be 'bothered' in here. It's gross

disrespect to my brother-prefects--my colleagues. Besides, you knew

perfectly well that in the stilly night a malicious attempt was made

upon--not upon the life--but upon the cane of Mr. Fillet, which is,

after all, the life and soul of the little man."

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

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

"Really, child, such expressions as 'O law!' are out of order,

especially when they're only so much bluff.... I must now approach a

subject which may have sordid recollections for you, but in the

interest of the law I am bound to allude to it. Were you

whacked--ahem!--chastised a few days ago by the aforesaid Mr.

Fillet?"

"Yes."

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

"Yes, tell the gentleman that," put in Kepple-Goddard, a prefect who

felt that he was not playing a sufficiently imposing part and wished

to have his voice heard.

"A week ago last Monday," I answered.

"Where did he whack you?" pursued Stanley.

"On the recognised spot."

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

"Why, in his class-room, of course," I retorted. "Where do you think

he'd do it? In the High Street?" As I said this I was seized with a

nervous fit of giggling.

"Look here, sonny," said Kepple-Goddard, rapping on the table,

"you're going the right way towards getting a prefects' whacking for

contempt of court."

Stanley raised his hand for silence.

"Why did he whack you?"

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

Here Banana-Skin, a large and overbearing prefect, so called because

of his yellowish complexion, burst in with the skill of a

prosecuting counsel:

"Oh, then, are we to understand that you were whacked unjustly and

had reason for vindictiveness?"

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

"But," I said, beginning to feel that horrid array of tears

mobilising again, "that was some time before he gave me the lines--"

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

that you hated him?"

The question was not answered at once. I cannot explain how it was,

but the figure of Radley stood very clearly before my mind's eye,

and this helped me to speak the truth, though my voice broke a bit.

"Yes."

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

admission.

"Now," continued Stanley, his curiosity superseding his sense of

what was relevant, "how many cuts did he give you?"

"Ten."

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

I shrugged my shoulders.

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

"Yes," I replied.

"H'm!" grunted Stanley. "How did you know where you could find your

thousand lines so that you could tear them up?"

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

"Hallo!" cried Banana-Skin. "Didn't you hear him say '_You're_

bluffing now'? That shows that _he_ was bluffing before."

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

chance."

There's nothing like sympathy for provoking misery and starting

tears, and, as Stanley uttered that sentence, I decided that God had

gone over to the prefects, and I would very much like to cry. To

drive back the tears I called to my aid all the callousness and

sulkiness which I possess. My face was the portrait of a sulky

schoolboy as Stanley continued:

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

"I didn't leave it."

"I say," suggested Kepple-Goddard, "couldn't we send Bickerton to

ask all the boys who sleep in the same dormitory whether they saw

him leave it?"

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

"Not necessarily."

"But it doesn't follow that, if they didn't see him leave

the dormitory, he didn't do it," objected Banana-Skin, the

self-constituted prosecuting counsel, who didn't want to see his

case fall to the ground.

"Not quite. But if they _did_ see him, it proves him a liar and

pretty well shows that he did."

"There's more sense in Kepple's idea than one would expect," gave

Stanley as his decision. "Dash away, Bicky, and find out."

So Bickerton--or shall I call him Mercury, the messenger of the

gods?--went, and I remained. It was no matter to me what news he

brought back. I stood there, in the lions' den, and counted the

cracks in the ceiling. I counted, also, the number of corners that

the room possessed, and remembered how these same prefects had often

(as when gods disport themselves) tried to make Doe and me stand in

them for what they termed "unmitigated cheek"; how, giggling, we

would fight them and kick them till they surrounded us and held us

with our faces to the wall; and how we would call them all the rude

names we could think of till they stuffed handkerchiefs in our

mouths as a gag. One of their favourite pastimes had been to do

Doe's hair, which they darkened with their wet brushes. It was

usually a difficult business, as Doe would treat the whole operation

in a disorderly spirit and declare that it tickled.

Presently Bickerton was heard running up the corridor (rather

undignified for a prefect) and came bursting into the room.

"Now listen," said he, somewhat out of breath, and looking at a

sheet of paper which he held in his hand. "Two boys saw Ray get up

and leave the dormitory last night. They sleep on either side of

him, and their names are Pennybet and Doe. The latter isn't sure

whether he dreamt it."

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

"Nothing," I answered, "except that, if it's true, I must have been

walking in my sleep. I did once, when I was a small boy."

Stanley ignored my feeble defence. He submitted to his colleagues

that it was all his eye and Betty Martin; and the others nodded

assent. Then the Chairman, recovering from his slight relapse into

the vernacular of the Fourth Form, enunciated the following

remarkable sentence:

"This inquest has, you will agree, been conducted by me in a

strictly impartial and disinterested way, and the proceedings have

been conspicuous for the absence of any bias, prejudice, or

bigotry."

"Whew!" whistled several boys. Stanley let a grin hover in a

well-bred way about his lips as he recommenced, the sentence being

well-prepared and worth repeating:

"There has been no bias, prejudice, or bigotry. Well, gentlemen, is

the corpse guilty or not guilty?"

"Guilty, the little beast!"

I went out of that cruel room resolved that "beneath all the

bludgeonings of chance my head should be bloody but unbowed." I was

unconquerable! I walked along the corridor, blown out with injured

virtue--a King among men. We assure you, our beloved subjects, we

were Rupert Head-in-Air.

§2

I returned to Radley's class-room and entered jauntily. All eyes

turned and followed me as I walked to the master's desk. The

excitement experienced by each boy seemed communicated to me. Radley

feigned indifference.

"Well?" said he.

"I've come back, sir."

"Right. Go and sit down."

Scarcely had I reached my seat before the bell rang loudly for the

Interval. The boys in their anxiety to hear the latest news flowed

out hurriedly. I lingered apprehensively behind. At last I summoned

up courage to venture into the corridor, where I found a group of

boys awaiting me. Through these I broke at a rush and went and hid.

All that Interval lip tossed to lip such remarks as: "Ray did it."

"I say, have you heard Ray's the culprit?" "What'll be done to him?"

"Oh, the prefects have issued an edict that anyone who holds

communication with him will get a Prefects' Whacking." "Ray did it."

"What? that kid? Little devil--it's good-bye to him, I suppose."

"What'll Radley say? He's one of his latest bally pets." "Ray did

it."

After ten minutes the Second Period began. As our form went to Herr

Reinhardt, the great Mr. Cæsar, and he would certainly be late, I

dawdled in my hiding-place, not having the courage to face the boys

in the corridor. I waited till I conjectured that Mr. Cæsar must be

safe in his class-room, and the boys in their desks. Then I entered

his room, famous character as I was, and apologised for being late.

Mr. Cæsar wrote my name in the Imposition Book, but, having raised

his face and given one look at my swollen, tearful eyes, he

deliberately crossed the name out again. And, indeed, throughout

that period he so consistently refused to see that the boys were

showing detestation of my degrading presence, and was so

inexpressibly gentle in his manner towards me, that now I always

think of this weak-eyed German master as a quiet and Christian

gentleman.

When school-hours were over I went to a window, and there, leaning

on the sill, thought how badly my war was going. Fillet was winning;

he had won when he caned me for asking the number of the sum; he had

won when he gave me the thousand lines; and now he was assaulting in

mass formation with the whole school as his allies. Ah, well! as

Wellington said at Waterloo--it depended who could stand this

pounding longest, gentlemen.

And, as Wellington did, I would charge at the end of the day. One

splendid way of charging, I thought, would be to die immediately.

That would be most effective. How Fillet would prick up his ears on

Monday morning when he heard the Head Master say to the school

assembled in the Great Hall: "Your prayers are asked for your

schoolfellow, Rupert Ray, who is lying at the point of death." And

on Tuesday, when he should say in a shaking voice: "Your

schoolfellow, Ray, died early this morning. His passing was

beautiful; and may my last moments be like his." And then there

would be the Dead March.

Having no one to talk to, I drew out from among the crumbs and

rubbish in my pockets a letter that had arrived from my mother that

morning. My young mother's love for me was always of the extravagant

kind, and the words with which she closed this letter were:

"I do hope you are having a magnificent time and that everybody

is fond of you and nice to you. I must stop now, so good-bye,

my darling little son, and God bless you. With heaps of love

from your ever devoted and affectionate Mother."

It was funny that I had not even noticed those words when I

hurriedly read them in the morning. But now I found them strangely

comforting, strangely satisfying.

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

"Come along, Rupert. I know you didn't do it. Or, if you did, I

don't care. We're twins."

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

me."

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

do."

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

very comfortable here."

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

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

"Go away. Go away."

But Doe persisted. In full view of the prefects he chatted gaily to

me. Once, as Radley passed, he slipped his arm into mine. And when

the master was out of hearing he asked:

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

"Of course. Everybody does."

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

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

"I wonder what he thought."

All this time the skin on my forehead seemed to tighten and my

cheeks to tingle with warmth. Towards evening my temples began to

beat regularly. At these symptoms I was rather thrilled than

otherwise, for I felt there was a distinct prospect of my turning

the tables on everybody by dying.

At preparation the boys, with that lust to punish to which a crowd

is always susceptible, slid along the form to get as far from

me as possible and to leave plenty of room for myself and my

contamination.

In the dormitory no one spoke to me, but as I was getting into my

pyjamas one of the dormitory prefects burst in and addressed a

senior boy:

"I say, talking about this row of Rupert Ray's, isn't the Gray Doe

going to catch it to-morrow, by jove?"

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

"What's he going to get?" My voice sounded husky and strange. The

boys didn't answer me or show that they had heard. They

ostentatiously proceeded with their conversation. Even Pennybet had

his back turned. I flung myself into my bed in a way that nearly

broke the springs, and, pulling the clothes furiously over my head,

left my bare feet showing, at which several boys laughed

contemptuously.

Oh, the horrid activity of my wide-awake brain! I couldn't sleep,

and even found difficulty in keeping my eyes shut. Once, as I raised

my weary lids, I found that the lights had gone out since I last

opened my eyes. And my headache, which had spread to the back of my

neck, was getting but little relief from my frequent changes of

position. Oh, the horrible conglomeration of ideas that crowded my

mind! Recent scenes and conversations entangled themselves in one

another. Ray did it--Ray did it--my darling little son--good-bye and

God bless you--there has been no bias, prejudice, or bigotry, but

heaps of love from your devoted and affectionate mother--Ray did

it--it's good-bye to him, I suppose--good-bye and God bless you--

"_Good-night, Ray_."

That must be Doe's voice; it came from reality and not from dreams:

it came loudly out of the silence of the dormitory and not from the

chorus of conflicting sentences droning in my mind: it was a real

voice, but I was too tired and too far lost in stupor to answer it:

good-night, Ray--it's good-bye to him, I suppose--heaps of

love--there was some comfort in that--heaps of love from your

devoted and affectionate mother. Ah! when shall I get properly off

to sleep? Let me turn over on to my other side and put my hand under

the pillow--but it was young Ray--Ray did it--Ray did it--how that

detestable sentence swells till it packs my head!--and I must be

asleep now, for I see Fillet fitting a rope across the door of an

unknown bedroom wherein I am confined with some invisible Terror

which drives me out of my bed: as I rush into the passage the rope

trips me up, and I fall forwards but am saved from injury by my

mother's arms: she catches me in the dark and says something about

my darling little son. And she remonstrates with Fillet, who is

standing by that dreadful bedroom door, till he merges into Stanley

listening shame-facedly to my mother's silvery, chiding laugh and

assuring her that the inquest was conducted in a strictly impartial

and disinterested way. He changes into old Doctor Chapman, who tells

her that Freedham died early this morning. For everything changes in

the dream except one thing: which is that there is a head aching

somewhere; now it is my own, now someone else's. I draw my mother

along a passage to a window and explain that the pencil-mark on the

glass is the register of my height. I put my back against the wall

to let her see that I can just reach the mark, when lo! it is a

great distance above me. I get on the cold stone window-sill that I

may reach it, and would fall a thousand feet, only something in my

breast goes "click"--and the dream was gone. With my return to

consciousness came the knowledge that the headache had been my own

throughout.

But it was terribly cold--and what a draught! Perhaps it was because

I was lying so dreadfully straight, whereas I generally lay curled

up. I wanted to bring my knees towards my chest, but couldn't move

my legs. How cold my chest was! Why had the bedclothes fallen away

and left it exposed to this horrible draught? I would have liked to

pull them right over my head that I might get warm again, but I was

too tired to make the effort. At last, however, the cold was more

than I could bear. So I put out both hands to pull up the

blankets--but could find none anywhere. God! I wasn't in bed at all,

but was standing!

The horror of that moment! A wild heart beat lawlessly at my side.

One more touch of terror, and it would rebel in utter panic. Why was

the dormitory so dark? Why had the little night-lamp gone out? And

the wooden floors were stone-cold like the window-sill in my dream.

I couldn't see if my bed were close to me or far away because of the

impenetrable darkness; but I was so very, very tired, and my eyes

were so uncomfortably warm with interrupted sleep that I must try to

feel my way. I put out my hand and touched a _padlock_. Like a

flash, it came with all its terror upon me: I was not in the

dormitory nor anywhere near it, but right away in a cellar below the

ground where there were some old lockers and play-boxes. Flinging

myself first to one side of the cellar and then to the other, I tore

at the walls in an agonised endeavour to get out. The last thing

that I remember was shrieking loudly and feeling a moisture rise to

my dry lips and pass down my chin.

§3

I awoke with a dull sense of impending trouble to find myself abed

in the Bramhall sick-room, into which long shafts of noonday

sunlight were streaming from behind drawn blinds. Looking down upon

me was Dr. Chapman, with his usual white waistcoat and moist cigar.

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

matter with you?"

I replied that I didn't know, and, just to see what he would say,

asked him why he called me "Gem."

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

short for Jeremiah."

"The gifted old liar!" I thought, while I demanded aloud his reason

for calling me "Jeremiah."

"Why, because you look so dam--miserable, as though your eyes would

gush out with water."

And partly at this idea, partly at his skill in getting out of a

difficulty, Chappy laughed so heartily that I laughed too, only with

this difference--that, whereas his laugh was like sounding brass,

mine was like a tinkling cymbal. Then he sat down by my bed and,

taking my wrist in one hand, pushed up the sleeve of my pyjama

jacket and felt my smooth, firm forearm. "Good enough," he said, and

proceeded to open the jacket down the front, and feel my chest and

waist, thumping me in both of them, and expecting me to gurgle

thereat like a sixpenny toy.

"You're all right," he decided, "except that you're an ass. Take

your medical man's word for it--you're an ass. My prescription is

'Cease to be lunatic three times daily and after eating.' My fee'll

be a guinea, please."

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

"Confound you! Don't look at me with those Jeremiad eyes. What have

you been doing, moping indoors for the last ten days instead of

playing in the fresh air?"

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

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

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

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

and delightful.

I think I loved him for those words. I felt that my allies were

swinging into line for the great war against Carpet Slippers. There

was Doe, and now Chappy.

"I know all about it," continued the new ally, "and then you filled

your excitable mind with thoughts of revenge--eh?"

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

"And off you go on your midnight perambulations--the cold wakes you

up--and there's the devil to pay--and the old doctor to pay! One

guinea, please. And now I'm off."

"Oh, don't go," I pleaded, before I was aware of saying it. I didn't

want him to go, for he was an entertaining apothecary and a

sympathetic person, before whom I could act my sullenness and

aggrievement.

"Don't go? Why shouldn't I?" demanded Chappy, who seemed, however,

touched at my wanting him. "Now, my son, don't you run away with the

idea that you're of the slightest importance. All boys are the most

useless, burdensome, and expensive animals in the world. It wouldn't

matter twopence if they were all wiped out of existence--there'd be

a sigh of relief. So don't think it interesting that you're ill.

Because it isn't. And you ain't ill. So good-bye."

He disappeared into the matron's room next door, and his hearty

voice could be heard haranguing the lady:

"The Gem's got a healthy young constitution, but his brain's a

ticklish instrument. His _corpore_ is as _sano_ as you like, but his

_mens_ is rather too _excitabilis_. Ah ha! Matron, what it is to

move in this classic atmosphere! Certain sproutings of his

imagination must be repressed--push 'em down, Matron. Young beggar,

I'd sit on him and crush him. But then, it's all the fault of that

stuttering old barbarian slave-driver, Fillet."

Here the matron must have been speaking, for I heard no more till

Chappy began again:

"He's got a tough little breast, fine stomach-muscles, and limbs

firm and round enough to get him a prize in a Boy Show. But the

beast is spoiled as a specimen by his little Vesuvius of a mind. And

oh, Matron, I lied to him like an under-secretary. I said that boys

were the least important arrangements in the world, when, dammit--I

mean, God bless my soul--they're the most important things in

Creation, and this particular hotbed of the vermin has some of the

finest editions of them all. But never let the little blades know

it--never let 'em know it."

With that he must have taken his leave, for quiet assumed possession

of everything. I settled down to the boredom of the afternoon,

letting my eyes travel up and down the stripes of the wall-paper. Up

one stripe I went, down the next, and up the third, till I had

covered the whole of one wall. Then I tossed myself on to my other

side with an audible groan that gave me but little relief, since

there was no one to hear. The day wore on, and the long streaks of

light worked their way round the room, grew ruddier, and climbed up

the wall.

Oh, wearisome, wearisome afternoon! I began to sing quietly to

myself such songs as I knew: "Rule, Brittania," "God save the King,"

and "A Life on the Ocean Wave." This I gave up at last, and thought

out _corking_ replies that I might have made to the prefects, had my

wit been readier.

"Ding-ding-ding!" That was tea. Would Doe be any less happy when he

saw my vacant place, and wonder if I were very ill? How was Penny

feeling, who had lifted up his heel against me? Might he, together

with Stanley and his colleagues, think me dying! What would Stanley

and the prefects do to Doe for his flagrant breach of their edict?

Perhaps at this moment he was being tried by the great Stanley and

his Tribunal. Perhaps even now they had him bent over a chair and

were giving him a Prefects' Whacking. At any rate, I wished he would

walk in his sleep or do something that would bring him to this

monotonous sick-room. Why shouldn't he? Like me, he had been immured

indoors for ten days; like me, also, he had reasons for being

unhealthily excited.

"Ding-ding-ding!" I had closed my eyes when this bell sounded. It

meant Preparation, so it must be getting dark. I would open my eyes

and see. I did so, and saw nothing except darkness, which made me

think I must have dozed. The sudden view of the darkness frightened

me, for I remembered the terror of the preceding night and that,

before many hours, the whole world would be silenced in sleep, while

I might be wandering in the fearful cellars. At the thought my lips

formed the words: "O God, don't make me wake again in the Old

Locker Room. O God, don't. I wish I had somebody to talk to."

As I mechanically uttered this prayer, I began to feel rather

strongly that, if I were going to ask God to make this arrangement

for me, I ought to do something for Him. Clearly I must get out of

bed and say my prayers properly. So I stepped on to the floor,

reeling dizzily from my enforced recumbence, and knelt by the side

of the bed. Falling into prayers that I knew by heart, and scarcely

heeding what I was saying, I prayed (as my mother had taught me to

do when I was a little knickerbockered boy) for the whole chain of

governesses who had once taken charge of me. I enumerated them by

their nicknames: "Tooby and Dinky and Soaky and Miss Smith."

Trapping myself in this mistake, I actually blushed as I knelt

there. I realised that I must be more up to date. So I prayed for

Penny, Freedham, Stanley, Bickerton, and Banana-Skin, but I drew up

abruptly at Carpet Slippers. I couldn't forgive him. I felt I ought

to, but I couldn't. There, on my knees, I thought it all out; and at

last light broke upon me. To forgive didn't necessarily mean to

forgo the punishment. Yes, I would forgive him and pray for him, but

his punishment would go on just the same.

After this satisfactory compromise I got back into bed, happy at

being spiritually solvent, and repeating: "O God, don't make me wake

in the Old Locker Room; I wish I had someone to talk to."

And almost immediately, as if my prayers were to be answered, I

heard the noise of feet running towards my door. It opened, and

Bickerton, taking no notice of me, walked to the middle of the room,

struck a match, and lit the gas. Returning quickly, he said to

someone else who was approaching: "Oh, there you are. I've lit the

gas. Bring him and get him to bed. Put him beside the other ass for

company." I sat up in my excitement, and with a thrill--first of

elation and then of dismay--saw Stanley enter, bearing a boy, who,

with arms and legs hanging limply downwards, was apparently

lifeless: his fair head was a contrast with Stanley's dark blue

sleeve on which it rested, and his brown eyes, wide open, were

shining in the gas like glass.

§4

In committee that morning Stanley and his colleagues had decided

that Doe had deliberately asked for a Prefects' Whacking, and must

therefore be given an extra severe dose. He should be summoned to

judgment after games. So, just as Doe, who was standing bare-chested

in the changing room, had pushed his head into his vest, a voice,

shouting to him by name, obliged him to withdraw it that he might

see his questioner. It was Pennybet, acting as Nuncius from the

prefects.

"You're in for it, Edgar Doe," said this graceful person, leisurely

taking a seat and watching Doe dress. "I'm Cardinal Pennybet, papal

legate from His Holiness Stanley the Great. Bickerton had the sauce

to send for me and to describe me as a ringleader in all your

abominations. I represented to him that he was a liar, and had been

known to be from his birth, and that he probably cheated at Bridge;

and he told me to jolly well disprove his accusation by fetching you

along. I explained they were making beasts of themselves over this

Ray business--"

"It would have been more sporting of you," said Doe, drawing on his

trousers and thanking Heaven that he was not as other men, nor even

as this Pennybet, "if you'd stuck by Rupert and defied the

prefects."

"My dear Gray Doe," this statesman expounded, "I go in for nothing

that I can't win. And if you want to win, you must always make sure

that the adverse conditions are beatable. I like to tame

circumstances to my own ends (hear, hear), but if they aren't

tamable I let them alone. So now you know. But about these prefects.

They've got their cane ready, so push your shirt well down."

Doe studiously refused to hurry over his dressing, and, having

assumed his jacket, went to a mirror and took great pains with his

hair. At this moment, though the hand which held the brush trembled,

he was almost happy: for he was playing, I know, at being a French

Aristocrat going to the guillotine dressed like a gentleman.

"My time is valuable," hinted Penny. "Still, by all means let us be

spotless.... That's right. Now you look ripping. Come along, and

I'll stand you a drink when it's over."

For Penny, the callous opportunist, had a sort of patronising

tenderness for his two acolytes.

Doe followed his conductor in a silence which not only saved him

from betraying timidity by a trembling voice, but also suited the

dignity of a French Aristocrat. But no--at this point, I think, he

was a Christian martyr walking to the lions.

"Come, my lamb, to the slaughter-house," said Penny, in the best of

spirits, "and don't try that looking-defiant game, 'cos it won't

pay. They're not taking any to-day, thank you. That's their tone....

There's the door. Now remember not to say a word on your own behalf,

for with these bally prefects anything that you say will be taken

down in evidence against you.... Enter the prisoner, gentlemen.

Sorry to be so long, but we had to make ourselves presentable.

Anything else in the same line to-day?"

Penny paused for breath, but showed no desire to leave the Prefects'

Room. He wanted to see at least the commencement of judicial

proceedings. They looked so promising. All the Bramhall prefects

were there--Bickerton, Kepple-Goddard, and the prosecuting counsel,

Banana-Skin; and Stanley--Stanley by the grace of God.

"Bring the boy Doe in," ordered Stanley, "and kick that gas-bag

Pennybet out. If he were a year younger we'd whack him too."

No one thought himself specifically addressed, and Penny was left in

possession of the floor. But Stanley's curt treatment rankled in his

heart. So, placing his feet wide apart and his hands in his

waistcoat pockets, he respectfully drew attention to the opprobrious

epithet "gas-bag" which had been employed in requesting him to

retire from this Chamber of Horrors, and asked that the offensive

remark might be withdrawn.

Stanley scorned communication with an impertinent junior. He

telegraphed a glance to Bickerton.

"Turf him out, Bicky."

But Penny, perceiving that rough treatment would ensue, gracefully

removed himself from the room, so timing his motions that he closed

the door from outside just as Bickerton from within arrived at the

handle. Bickerton, defeated, swung round upon the assembly and

asked if he should follow the fugitive.

"That kid's too smart to live," said Stanley, more generous than his

peers. "Let him be. He'd best you and a good many more of us.

Besides, it's nearly tea-time, and we've got to get this Doe

business over."

Bickerton accordingly took up his place on the fender and considered

himself empanelled upon the jury. Doe stood with his hands behind

his back, his cheeks very flushed, and his knees slightly shivering,

but upheld by the thought of his resemblance to Charles I. He would

scorn to plead before this unjust tribunal.

"Now, Edgar Doe," began Stanley, and his voice was the signal for

silence in the court and for all eyes to be concentrated on the

prisoner. "You've made a little fool of yourself. You've openly set

us all at defiance and, no doubt, thought yourself mighty clever. I

don't think you'd have been so ready to do it if we hadn't been

decent and had you in here sometimes. But that's beside the point,

only I may say in passing that we shan't have you here any more."

"I don't care," said Doe. "I don't want to come, and I wouldn't come

if you asked me."

"Yes, we all know that. It was the obvious thing to say, Mr. Edgar

Gray Doe. Now we aren't bullies, and perhaps, had you comforted your

friend on the Q.T., and been copped doing so, we'd have let you off.

But it's the beastly blatancy of it all that constitutes the gravity

of your offence and detracts from its value as a self-denying act of

friendship. Do I express myself clearly?" concluded Stanley, turning

to his colleagues.

"Perfectly," said Kepple-Goddard.

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

"I wasn't listening."

Stanley, nonplussed, looked round upon the jury. Banana-Skin

muttered: "The little devil!" Bickerton from the fender sighed:

"_St. St._ Ah, me! to think how we've swept and garnished the Gray

Doe! 'I never loved a dear gazelle, But what it turned and stung me

well.'"

"Dry up, Bicky," came the president's rebuke, "and go and turn away

those kids who are making a row with their feet in the corridor.

Remain on guard out there, if you don't mind. It's behaviour like

Doe's that makes these kids so uppish. Thanks, Bicky."

There was a sound of scurrying feet and repressed impish laughter,

as Bickerton opened the door and shut it behind him.

"Now, Doe," resumed Stanley, "what have you to say for yourself

before we leave the talking and get to business?"

"Nothing," replied Doe, "except that I'll go on being pally with Ray

whatever you do, you--you set of cads!"

"I say"--Stanley was keeping his temper--"don't play the persecuted

hero defying the world. It won't wash here."

"I'm not playing the persecuted hero," retorted Doe loudly, but with

drowned eyes. "I didn't think myself mighty clever--I--"

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

and torturing way.

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

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

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

you do."

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

blubbing there."

"I'm not!"

"Fetch the cane out," pursued Banana-Skin, unheeding. "It's no good

talking. Get him over that chair, Kepple."

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

"By jove!" cried Stanley, jumping up. "He's going to show fight, is

he? Pass over that cane. Now, bend over that chair, youngster."

"I won't."

"Look here, you unutterable fool. Here's the cane. See it? If you do

what you're told you'll get a stiff whacking, but if you don't, by

God, there's no saying what you'll get."

Doe sprang forward, seized the cane, smashed it, and hurled the

pieces into their midst. "Now then, you cads, you can't lick me, you

brutes, you fools! Come for me--you lot of great devils!" He roared

this at them, and the last words were shouted in a burst of

hysterical crying. With head down he charged into Stanley, crashing

his fist on the senior prefect's chin.

The outraged prefects lost their heads. They surrounded him as he

fought. Above the turmoil came the cries: "Get hold of the little

devil!" "Pin his hands to his sides!" "He shan't forget this!" "Trip

him up, if you can't do anything else!" "It's not pluck, it's

temper!" "He's down--he's up again!" "By jove, the little blackguard

is going to beat the lot of you!" "Get him on the ground--don't be

afraid to go for him--he's asked for it." "That's right--got his

wrist? Twist it!" "Devil take it, he's wrenched it free again." "Get

out of the light--I'll settle him!" "I've got him--no, by God, I

haven't!"

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

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

"Can't help it!" yelled back Banana-Skin. "It's his fault. Let him

have it. That's right. Get him against the wall."

"Come away, you fools!" And Stanley began to pull them off and fling

them away furiously. Banana-Skin had a shock when he found himself

seized and hurled against the opposite wall.

It had been well had Stanley done this earlier, for Doe, turning

very white, fell forwards.

"Heaven save us!" exclaimed Stanley, as white as Doe. "We've done it

now. What brutes we are! Lock the door. He's fainted. By heaven, I

wish this had never happened!"

Doe had not fainted. He was in a state of semi-unconsciousness when

he knew where he was, but it was a long way off--when he heard all

that was said, but it came from a great distance--when neither his

position nor the sound of voices was of any interest to him, and his

only desire was to pass into complete unconsciousness, which would

bring rest and sleep. He felt them catch hold of him, one by the

armpits and another by the ankles, and knew that he was being lifted

on to a table.

Then the voices began from the top of a great well, while he lay at

the bottom. He could hear what they said; but why would they persist

in talking and keeping him awake? He was indifferent to them: they

were like voices in a railway carriage to a dozing traveller.

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

"Oughtn't we to undo his collar?"

Then the remarks evaporated into nonsense, but only for a space,

after which the nonsense solidified into sentences again.

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

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

Doe was ascending from the bottom of his great well: the voices were

becoming distincter, a pain in his head and body worse.

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

Doe was coming up and must have reached the top, for it was raining.

How silly! That wasn't rain, but the water being sprinkled over his

forehead. How hard the top of the well was! But there--he was

nowhere near a well, but in the Prefects' Room, lying on a deal

table. Or was he at the bottom of the sea?

"He's looking better now."

Up he came from the bottom of the ocean. Above him he could see the

surface, a broad expanse of pale green, through which the sun was

trying to shine and succeeding better every second. Though all the

while conscious that his eyes were closed, he saw dancing on the

green rippling veil, beneath which he lay, little spots of colour

that grew in number till they became a dazzling kaleidoscope.

"Doe, are you all right now?"

The kaleidoscope was gone; and the top of the sea was above him,

getting steadily closer and brighter. Good--he was above the surface

now, and the water seemed out of his ears, so that he heard with

perfect clearness the voice of Stanley saying:

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

Though his eyes were still shut he felt he must be awake, because

the Prefects' Room with its furniture had crowded his mental vision.

So he opened his eyes, and there, sure enough, were the prefects'

chairs and cupboards; they seemed, however, to have moved with a

jump from the positions they had occupied in his mental picture.

If you wake and see faces looking down on you, the natural thing to

do is to smile round upon them all; and this Doe did, so that his

persecutors were touched, and Stanley said:

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

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

"Well, never mind about that; but tell us if you're feeling putrid,

because then we'll tell old Dr. Chapman and make a clean breast of

it. My colleagues and I are determined to do the right thing."

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

Ding-ding-ding!

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

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

So Doe, sustained by a pride in his determination to conceal what

had happened and screen the prefects, walked with racking head and

aching limbs into tea, where he made a show of eating and drinking,

though periodically the room went spinning round him.

Tea over, he staggered into the Preparation room and sat at his desk

with his brows on his hand and his eyes on his book. The print

danced before his gaze: letter rushed into letter, word merged

mistily into word, line into line, till all was a grey blur. A blink

of the eyes--an effort of the will--a sort of "squad, shun!" to the

type before him--and the words jumped back into their places,

letters separated from their entanglement and stood like soldiers at

spruce attention. A relaxing of the effort--and dismiss!

helter-skelter, pell-mell went letter, word, and line. It was all a

blur again. Once more he made the necessary exercise of his will and

was able to read a line or two; but, if the mistiness were not to

come before his eyes, the effort had to be sustained, and that made

his head feel very heavy. It proved too much for him; the will to do

it expired, and away went the letters into the fog. Some boys

whispered that he was sighing for his friend Ray; others teased him

by muttering: "Diddums get whacked by the prefects? Diddums get a

leathering?"

Poor Doe! He must have been strongly tempted to retort: "I wasn't

whacked, so sucks!" and to describe that picturesque incident when

he smashed the prefects' cane, for his milk was the praise of men.

But he had to choose whether, by a little honourable bragging, he

should gratify his desire for glory, or by a martyr's silence he

should give himself the satisfaction of playing a fine hero. The

latter was the stronger motive. He kept silence, and only hoped that

his valorous deeds would leak out.

Preparation was nearly over when there came one of those

heart-stopping crashes which all who hear know to be the total

collapse of a human being. A faint--aye, and a faint in the first

degree, when life goes out like a candle.

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

rising.

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

"Oh, ah, I see," said he, leaving his desk and hastening to the

spot. "Sit down, all of you. There's nothing very extraordinary in a

boy fainting. Here, Stanley, pick him up and take him to the

sick-room; and, Bickerton, go with him. The rest of you get on with

your work."

Thereafter Pennybet--or, at least, so he assured us--expended his

spare time in knocking his head against walls and holding his breath

in the hope that he, too, might faint and have a restful holiday in

the sick-room.

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

§5

"It's funny that we do everything together," said Doe that same

evening, as we lay in our beds and watched each other's eyes in the

light of the turned-down gas. "First we're twins; then we get

whacked together; then we both get rowed by prefects; and I do a

faint and you do a sort of fit.... But, I say, Rupert, look here; I

want to ask you something: will people think I was a fool in

everything I did, or will they think--well, the other thing? I mean,

let's put it like this--what would Radley think?"

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

"I s'pose he's heard all about it. I hope he has--at least, I mean,

I'd like him to think I stuck by you. Only, when the prefects were

talking about defiance, it struck me that Radley might call it

'insubordination.'"

There was a pause, and then he proceeded: "I wonder if he'll be

sorry when he hears we are both laid up."

"Who?"

"Why, Radley, of course."

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

Radley, who had walked softly lest the invalids should be wakened

from sleep, was standing in the room and looking at us in the

glimmer. We were very surprised, and Doe's blushes at being caught

were only exceeded by the pleasure-sparkling of his eyes.

Radley approached my bed and placed the clothes carefully over my

chest. I didn't know whether to thank him for this, and only smiled

and reddened. And after he had done the same for Doe he sat at the

foot of his bed.

"When the world turns against you, always go sick," said he,

smiling. "It's an excellent rule for changing ill-will to sympathy.

If you're sent to Coventry, go straight to bed there. Oh, you're a

subtle pair, aren't you?"

We were both too shy to answer.

"Well, Ray, I've come to tell you to sleep with an easy mind. The

Head Master is satisfied that, if you were conducting operations in

Mr. Fillet's room, you were not conscious of it. It was Dr. Chapman

who worked all this for you. He threatened to go on strike if any

other conclusion were come to. He asked the Head whether he'd ever

dreamt he was doing most impossible things. The Head said 'Yes,' and

the doctor replied triumphantly: 'Well, don't let your brain get as

excited as a child's, or, maybe, if you're feverish and run down,

you'll go and do them.' He even suggested that possibly it was not

you but the Head who had committed the crime. He asked him if he

could imagine 'a silly and excitable kid' (which is an excellent

description of Ray) dreaming that he had done what actually was

done.... The Head was incredulous at first, but the doctor talked so

learnedly about the Subliminal Consciousness and Alternating

Personalities that the Head, if only for fear of getting out of his

depth, began to yield. I drove home the advantage by saying that I

believed you didn't generally lie--which was true, wasn't it?"

"Good Lord, no!" I replied.

"Well, it will be some day." Radley rose and strolled to the door.

"Yes, there's been a slump in Rupert Ray recently, but I'm afraid

there'll be a boom in him when he comes back to work, and he'll get

too big for his boots. It's a pity. Good-night."

And though Stanley, as we learnt later, had manfully revealed the

full story of Doe's sufferings at the hands of the prefects, Radley

walked away without giving the young hero one word of admiration.

And as the door shut Doe turned round in his bed, so that his face

was away from me, and maintained a wonderful silence.

CHAPTER V

CHEATING

§1

Time carried us a year nearer the shadow of the Great War. It

brought us to our fourteenth year, at which period Doe's mysterious

intrigue with Freedham still awaited solution, and my Armageddon

with Fillet still languished in a sort of trench-warfare.

It was now that our abominable form took to cheating once a week in

Fillet's class-room. A Roman History lesson left invitingly open the

opportunity to do so. For Fillet's method of examining our

acquaintance with the chapter he had set to be learnt in Preparation

was invariably the same. He asked twenty questions, whose answers we

had to write on paper. He would then tell us the answers and allow

us to correct our own work. After this he would take down our marks.

Now, our form had been organised by the all-powerful statesman,

Pennybet, who had lately been reading the Progressive Papers, into a

Trade Union, of which the President was Mr. Archibald Pennybet. He

had decided (as it is the business of all trade unions to decide)

that we were worked too hard. We must organise to effect an

improvement in the conditions of living. To demand from the Head

Master an instant reduction in the hours of labour didn't seem

feasible to our union of twenty members, but it would be quite easy

by a co-operative effort to modify the extent of our Preparation. At

a mass-meeting of the workers Penny outlined his scheme--Penny loved

scheming, moving forces, and holding their reins.

It was a marvellous scheme. We were to leave undone our Preparation

for the Roman History lesson, and, when Fillet told us the answers,

we were to write them down and credit ourselves with the marks.

"It's not cheating," explained our leader in his speech (and we

were all very glad, I think, to hear that it wasn't cheating),

"because it's not an effort to take an unfair advantage of each

other. It's just a cordial understanding, by which we all lessen one

another's burdens.

"I and my executive," continued Penny, "have all the details worked

out to a nicety. Here is a table for the whole term, showing how

many marks each worker will give up week by week. It is so graduated

that the clever fellows will end up at the top, and those who would

naturally slack will end up at the bottom. My executive has decided

that Doe is about the brainiest, so he comes out first"--blushes

from Doe--"and I myself am willing to stand at the bottom."

By this revelation of astonishing magnanimity Penny came out of the

transaction, as he did out of most things that he put his hand to,

with nothing but credit.

For half a term this comfortable scheme ran as merrily as a stream

down hill. And then a strange thing happened to me. I was talking

one afternoon to Penny on the absurdities of the Solar System, when

I became conscious that my mind had closed upon seven words: "That

Rupert, the best of the lot."

"That Rupert, the best of the lot." What on earth had resuscitated

those words? I politely bowed them out and continued my

conversation. But the phrase had entered like a bailiff into

possession of my mind. Even as I put it from me, believing it would

be lost in the flow of an absorbing conversation, I knew that there

had appeared upon the horizon a cloud no bigger than a man's hand.

"That Rupert, the best of the lot." The words, as first told to me

by my mother, had been the dying words of my grandfather, Colonel

Rupert Ray, with which he asked repeatedly for his dead son, my

father. So the words were uttered by the first Rupert Ray, applied

to the second, and recalled by the third at a most inopportune

moment. And the third would have bowed them out. Why? Because he was

a cheat? No--let us not be ridiculous--because he was in the midst

of an important conversation.

I pretended to listen to Penny, but really I was reasoning something

else. I was admitting that, now that this little phrase had popped

up through some trap-door of my mind, my conscience, long dormant on

the cheating theme, would have to be talked round again. And, as

something like suspense set in, I was anxious to join issue at once.

I left Penny abruptly and retired to a window (as you will have

observed it was my fashion to do), where I leant upon the sill and

prepared to argue out the problem.

Our co-operative effort to avoid preparing our lesson, was it wrong?

Yes. In spite of the old sophistry I knew it to be so. But what

attitude should one adopt? To refuse publicly to have any part in

the system would seem like mock-heroics. The only course open was to

learn the work and earn the marks. Inevitably I had arrived at the

conclusion which I dreaded. To learn the work seemed a task

surprisingly difficult and menacing after half-a-term's freedom. I

hugged that freedom. I wished my calm acquiescence in the system had

not been ruffled.

To learn the work--it was a little thing surely: to learn it unseen

and alone, while other boys went free of the labour, and gave

themselves the marks, notwithstanding. But no, I could no more

persuade myself that it was a little thing than I could believe that

any other course was the right one. I felt it was big--too big for

_me_.

Then the old thought, probably not an hour younger than sin itself,

was quick to take advantage of my indecision: I would go on as I was

a little while longer--till the end of the term--and then begin with

a clean sheet. There was much to be said in favour of this: for see,

if I were to do the thing thoroughly this term, I ought to forgo all

the marks that I had already come by dishonestly. To do that was

impossible. The confession involved would court expulsion.

Expulsion! As the word occurred to me, I realised the enormity of my

offence. How could I go on with that which, if detected, would mean

expulsion? To answer this question I went the whole dreary round of

reasoning once more and arrived at the conviction that the straight

action was incumbent upon me; which conviction I hastened to explain

away with the same dull casuistry. Sick and weary, I left the

window-sill and ceased to think any more. My conscience had given

battle to evil and neither lost nor won. Indecisive as the issue

was, I knew in my heart of hearts that it partook of the nature of a

defeat.

Later on, I wrote to my mother quite an effective analysis of this

spiritual difficulty: and I wrote it, so she loves to say, on a

postcard, and signed it "yours truly, Rupert Ray." Her reply I could

not expect till Wednesday morning, the morning of the lesson. Of

that I was glad. For to this extent I had temporised: I would wait

till I heard from her before attempting to learn the work. If

necessary, I could cram it up on Wednesday morning. And with this

settlement I was satisfied in a sickly way.

§2

While Tuesday is passing in silence and inaction, and the issue of

this crisis is in the bag of the postman, let me tell you something

of my relations with my mother. Her love for me, I have said, was of

the extravagant kind. It was ever and actively present. Though she

discharged her social duties with a peculiar grace, yet I am certain

that the thought she bestowed on them was an intruder amongst her

thoughts of me. My figure was present to her in the drawing-room,

the ball-room, or the theatre.

I fear I was not demonstrative in my affection for her. Perhaps,

when we sat alone at dinner on holiday evenings, and her dress was

one that left her arms bare, I would think that the softness of the

limbs was such as to make one wish to touch them; and I would stroke

them; or, when she laid her hand upon the table, I would rest my own

hot palm upon it. But I am certain that it was not till our stories

marched into the shadow of the Great War that I became at all

demonstrative.

Enough of that, then--the postman's feet are on the steps of

Bramhall House. May I just ask you to think of my mother as a very

gracious lady, gracious in form and feature and character?

§3

When breakfast was over on Wednesday morning, I repaired to the

Steward's Room, where letters had to be sought. I was attacked by a

feverish nervousness, which increased as I passed other boys

returning with letters in their hands. Anxiety seemed to be a

physical thing deflating my breast and loins. My heart, too, was

affected when I asked the Steward with feigned unconcern if there

were any letters for Ray. It beat rapidly as I awaited the reply.

None. I was stupefied: but soon stupefaction became anger; anger

hardened into sulkiness; and, as more sinister feelings grew,

sulkiness lost itself in guilty belief. Now I knew what course I

would take--I would go on cheating.

I turned to go out. Since that afternoon when the choice between

good and evil came so plainly before me, I had been dilly-dallying

at the spot where the two ways met. The more I hesitated, the

greater had become the desire to take the easier road. And now in

open rebellion against my scruples I stepped firmly upon it. My

reasoning was played out, and, as I walked back along the corridor,

I felt like one released from irksome fetters. Oh, it was good to be

free! At the same time, however, with the obstinacy of one who seeks

to justify himself, I muttered: "She might have written, I think,

she might have written."

Then a step sounded behind me, a hand touched my shoulder, so that

my heart jumped like a startled frog, and Radley said:

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

§4

My mother had written, but not to her son. The postman, who

disappointed me, brought a graceful note to Radley:

"I am most sorry for this trespass upon your time, and yet I

have little hesitation in asking your help in a matter that

concerns my son. Rupert, in his talks during the holidays, so

often mentions your name, that it is not difficult to see that

he owes you a good deal. Although he is too reserved to say so,

I fancy he is quite devoted to you. His postcard, which I

enclose, will explain all.

"May I take this opportunity of expressing my thanks, and of

saying how grateful his father would have been for all that you

are doing for our son?"

Radley, when we reached the privacy of his room, took up his

favourite position of sitting on the edge of the table. Before him

stood I, all reasoning suspended.

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

"What ch--?"

"Stop! Don't say 'What cheating?' because that would be acting a

lie. I tell you what we'll do. We'll wait a whole minute before you

answer me. We'll collect our thoughts and think whether we'll act

straightly or crookedly." He took his watch off his chain and placed

it upon the table beside him. "Right, we're off."

As the seconds sped by I tried to find some excuses. But, bewildered

and sick, I could only wonder how he came to know of it all. I had

found no answer when I saw him replacing his watch on his chain.

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

"I didn't think it exactly cheating."

"Ray, don't." Radley protruded and withdrew his lower jaw with

irritation. "You know it was cheating. If you didn't, why did you

know what I was referring to? Well, we'll have another sixty

seconds' interval. We must have time to think, or else we lie."

Out came the watch again. The pantomime of waiting in silence and of

replacing the watch was re-enacted. Then Radley, half smiling, as if

he knew the worst was over, took up his question once more.

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

Since I was not allowed to prevaricate, all that remained for me to

do was to return no reply. But there was stubbornness in my silence;

I should have liked to say pettishly: "But you won't let me explain,

you won't let me explain."

And then--quickly--Radley grasped me by the elbow and looked

straight down at me. For a second I resisted and tried to pull the

elbow away. His grip, however, was too strong, and I yielded.

I know now that his feeling for all the boys, as he gazed down upon

them from his splendid height, was love--a strong, active love. We

were young, human things, of soft features gradually becoming firmer

as of shallow characters gradually deepening. And he longed to be in

it all--at work in the deepening. We were his hobby. I have met

many such lovers of youth. Indeed, I think this is a book about

them.

And, as I am certain of his feelings for us all, so am I certain of

his feelings for myself. Those who were most pliant to his touch

loomed, of course, largest in his thoughts: and my mother's letter,

giving him the proof of my affection, which, since it was less

obtrusive than Doe's, had been probably less clear to him, brought

me in the foreground of his view. Be it right or wrong, this man

with the hard chin and kind eyes had his favourites; and I date from

this moment my usurping of Doe's position as Radley's foremost

favourite. The way in which he took hold of my elbow, my willing

submission of the army to his grasp told me that something was given

by him and taken by me. And my eyes, as was to be expected of them,

became suddenly moist and luminous.

"Time's going," he said, "and this Roman History lesson is upon us.

Have you learnt it?"

"No, sir."

"Well, the issue is simple: either you continue cheating, or you

give up no marks. Shall you cheat any more?"

"N-no, sir."

"Good, then you give up no marks."

"All right, sir."

"Well, hurry away. And if, when the big moment comes, you succeed in

doing what's right, come and see me again."

§5

The big moment came. Fillet opened his mark-book and read the names

in the order of last term's examination-list, which brought Doe's

name first. Doe was mending a nib when his name was called, and,

without raising his head, replied "100, sir."

Other names followed, and the boys gave up the marks allotted them

by Penny's system. Then came mine.

"Ray?"

For a second my voice or will failed me, so I pretended I had not

heard, and let him ask again.

"Ray?"

"_None, sir._"

Every boy turned towards me, and my cheeks burned to maroon. I

caught mutters of "Well, I'm hanged!" "Ye gods!" "Good-night!"

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

I was irritated and nervous and replied rather too loudly:

"_None, sir._"

"None? Why none?"

"I didn't learn it."

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

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

you learn it?"

Here I failed. I had answered the first two questions truthfully

because I had reasoned about them. The third took me unawares. And,

such is the result of trifling with conscience, I had lost the knack

of doing right without premeditation. "We must have time to think,"

Radley had said bitterly, "or else we lie." Obliged to answer

without delay, I lied.

"I hadn't time, sir."

No sooner had I uttered the words than the dull and sickening sense

of failure came over me. In spite of all--in spite of the fact that

I had dealt honourably with the first two questions--I had ended by

lying. I sat down slowly, and stared vacantly in front of me. The

big moment had come and passed, and I had missed it. I couldn't

believe it. I had been determined, and yet I had failed. My breath

became tremulous, and across my brows went the sudden invasion of a

headache.

Little it matters what Fillet said. Destiny ordains for our

correction that there shall be some people before whom we shall

always appear at our worst. Fillet occupied that place in my

schooldays.

Little would it matter, either, what my fellow trade-unionists

thought of this black-leg in the camp, were it not for the

remarkable deed of Pennybet. He, I am convinced, felt that he must

rise to the occasion. There were few things he liked better than

rising to an occasion. Here was an opportunity for a _coup d'état_.

Here, praise the gods, were circumstances to be tamed. So he at once

threw all his weight on my side, knowing full well that he had but

to do that to secure me from all persecution or contempt.

"P-pennybet?"

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

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

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

"I didn't exactly learn it."

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

As though deploring such tactless persistency, Penny pursed up his

mouth, laid his head on one side, shrugged his shoulders, and held

his peace.

"Had you, too, no time?"

"Well, not a great deal, sir."

There were some titters, and Penny looked deprecatingly in the

direction whence they came. Fillet passed judgment so severe that

Penny made a shocking grimace and said: "Thank you, sir. It shall

not occur again," which, to be sure, might have meant anything.

I think the characters of both my friends stood out, clearly

defined, in the words with which they referred to this incident

afterwards. Doe was generous in his praise. "Golly," he said, "I

wish I could feel I had done it as you can now. I cursed my luck

that my name didn't come after yours, so that I could have stood by

you, as Penny did. I could have throttled him with jealousy. Do you

know, I almost wished the other boys had mobbed you a bit, so that I

could have stuck by you." And Penny said: "You didn't really think I

was going to throw the weight of my trade union on to the side of

that foul, caitiff knave of a Carpet Slippers? Why, the man's a low

fellow--the sort of person one simply doesn't know. He'd drink his

own bath-water."

§6

"If you succeed in doing what is right, come and see me again." I

decided to stay away. Many times that morning I passed Radley in the

school buildings, and, pretending not to have seen him, went by with

a hum or a whistle. In the afternoon he came and coached our game at

cricket; and after tea he bowled at the Bramhall Nets where I was

practising. When he instructed me he spoke as though there were

nothing between us. But he was watching me, I knew; wondering why I

had not come, and longing for me: and I rather overplayed my part.

It had been a grey, dull day, but, just before retiring, the sun

came out and shamed the clouds into a sullen withdrawal. Then it

went under, leaving behind it a glorious red glow and the hope of

better things in the morning. All this I was in the mood to notice,

for, though trying to be indifferent to destiny, I was heavy and

dispirited. I did not see how I could ever do right again, since

Radley's determination and my own had been insufficient to brace me

for the onslaught. It was evident that mine was the stuff from which

criminals were made.

And, as the red glow departed and the darkness gathered, if there

was one lonely boy in the world, languidly despairing, it was I.

Many times I found myself uttering aloud such slang expressions as:

"Oh, my hat! If only I had told the beastly truth for the third

time! Dash it, why didn't I? Why the deuce didn't I?" I addressed

myself as: "You blithering, blithering fool!" And my temples began

to ache and now and then to hammer. For, always in these my early

days of puberty, excitement and worry produced such immediate

sensuous results.

Radley sent for me at last, and it was a relief to go. He was very

kind. Frankly, I believe he was pleased to have his new favourite in

his room again. I was indeed his hobby at present.

"Have I ever bullied you at the nets," he said, "for stepping back

to a straight ball?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, the universal habit of 'stepping back' is exactly parallel to

that of arguing with conscience. The habit grows; one's wicket

always falls after a few straight balls; and one's batting goes from

bad to worse. Never mind, you stood up splendidly to the first two

straight balls and scored boundaries off both. That shows you are

getting into your old form. You are out of practice a bit, that's

all."

And I went out of his room, feeling sure that for some time I would

be very good.

§7

I always left Radley's room, feeling that I could blast a way

through every mountain. And it was not long after he had received my

mother's letter with its allusion to my lack of a father, that he

addressed himself to a bigger mountain than any of these little

trumpery hills that you have watched me conquering. He invited me to

his room one evening, and sat me in an armchair opposite him: and

then he talked, while I watched the fire getting redder, as the room

grew darker. Soon he came unhesitatingly to a subject that I was

just at an age to understand. He spoke so fearlessly as to be quite

unrestrained and natural. Nevertheless, I was glad that the room was

getting darker, as I felt that my cheeks were red and hot. And when

he said: "You mustn't mind my talking to you like this," I could

only reply: "Oh, it's all right, sir."

But, once again, I left his room feeling that, though already I had

had my reverses in the moral contest of which he spoke, I would win

through in the end.

CHAPTER VI

AN INTERLUDE

In the summer holidays of that year I received a letter from Doe

inviting me to spend a few days with him at his Cornish home on the

Fal. Radley, he told me, was already his guest.

There was some excitement the morning I left home for this adventure

into the West Country. My mother had clothed me in a new dark-blue

suit. Her son must look his best, she said. She insisted on my

wearing a light-blue tie, for "it matched the colour of my eyes." I

rather opposed this on the ground that it was "all dashed silly."

But she disarmed me by pointing out that I was _her_ doll and not my

own, and the only one she had had since she was my age, which was a

century ago--a terrible lie, as she looked about twenty-seven. She

carried her point with a kiss, called me her Benjamin, tied the tie

very gingerly, and subsequently disarranged it completely by hugging

me to say good-bye, as though I were off for a lifetime.

Alone in my corner seat I was rolled over the Trail of Beauty that

the line of the Great Western follows. And I watched the telegraph

wires switchbacking from post to post, as we sped along.

When we steamed into Falmouth station, I easily distinguished

Radley's majestic figure standing on the platform, with Doe actually

hanging on his arm--a thing I would never have dared to do. In fact,

I guessed that Doe was doing it for my benefit. Our young host was

in a light grey suit that would have brought tears to the eyes of

Kensingtowe's administrators, who stipulate for dark garments only:

and, evidently, he had been allowed to dictate to his tailor, for

the suit was an exact copy of one that Radley had worn during the

previous term. He looked more than ever like his nickname, "the Gray

Doe."

Next morning the sun blazed out over England's loveliest stream,

the Fal, as, widening, it flowed seaward. We hurried down to the

foot of Doe's garden, where a rustic boat-house sheltered his

private vessel, the _Lady Fal_. Doe stepped into its stern, and I

into its bows, and Radley took the oars. With a few masterly

manoeuvres he turned the boat into midstream, and then pulled a

rapid and powerful stroke towards Tresillian Creek, where we had

decided to bathe. We touched the bank at a suitable landing-place,

disembarked, and prepared to undress.

The events of this day linger with me like a string of jewels; and

the bathe was one of the brightest of them all. There was a race

between Doe and myself to be first in the water. As I tossed off my

clothes, the excitement of anticipation was inflating me. I would

surprise them with my swimming.

My mother had taught me to swim. We began our studies in the bath,

when I was still a baby, she leaning over the side and directing my

splashing limbs. We achieved the desired result some years later in

the French seas off Boulogne. She never could swim a stroke herself,

but was splendid in the book-work of the thing. Since those days she

had given me unlimited opportunities to acquire perfection. So now,

Radley and Doe, my masters, you should learn a thing or two!

The undressing race resulted in a dead-heat, but whereas Doe

contented himself with a humble jump into the stream, I contrived to

execute a racing dive. Glorious immersion! It was lovely, oh,

lovely! The embrace of the cool river seemed entrancing, and I

remained a fathom down, experiencing one continuous delight.

Unfortunately I was under water longer than my breath would hold

out, and came to the view of Radley and Doe, choking and spluttering

and splashing. Anxious to retrieve my reputation, for I was

detestably conceited about my art, I started off for a long, speedy

swim, displaying my best racing stroke. Back again, at an even

faster pace, I got entangled with Doe, who greeted me a little

jealously with: "Gracious! Where did you learn to swim like that?"

Radley's mouth was set, and he remained mercilessly silent. He

wasn't going to teach me conceit.

Soon we were clothed again, and back in the boat with untidy wet

hair and stinging eyes, but with the glow of health warming our

bodies.

Throughout the day we plied our craft over the Fal, lunching up

King Harry Reach, and taking tea not far from Truro. When we turned

the head of the _Lady Fal_ for home, the sun was sinking fast, and

Radley pulled his swiftest, as he wished to be at Graysroof before

dark. So I lay in the bows and wondered at the straightness of his

back, and Doe nestled in the stern and admired the width of his

chest.

We glided over the surface: and there were no sounds anywhere, save

the rushes kissing the reeds, the water lapping the sides of the

boat, the little fishes chattering beneath, and the rhythmic music

of Radley's graceful feathering, which sounded like the flutter of a

bird upon the wing.

To dwell upon this beautiful evening is to recover a little of its

serene exaltation. I like to recall it as one of those days about

which we ask ourselves why we did not value them more when we had

them. I speak of it here, because, in the soothing peace of the Fal

that twilight, the Æsthetic seemed to stir in me--not so as to wake,

but so as to wake soon. I felt some vague premonition of all the

love, the sentiment, and the sorrow which would be mine in the

manhood that was brightening to a pale, but tinted, dawn.

_Part II: Long, Long Thoughts_

CHAPTER VII

CAUGHT ON THE BEATEN TRACK

§1

I am sixteen now, and the marks on the dormitory wall show me that I

am many inches nearer the height of my ambition, which is the height

of Radley. Second in importance, Kensingtowe has a new headmaster,

an extraordinary phenomenon in the scholastic heavens, a long man of

callow years and restless activity, with a stoop and a pointing

forefinger. He has a quaint habit, when addressing a bewildered

pupil, of prefacing his remarks, be they gracious or damnatory, with

the formula: "Ee, bless me, my man." (Nowadays none of us speaks to

a schoolfellow without beginning: "Ee, bless me, my man.") "Salome"

we call the entertaining creature. This nickname adhered like a

barnacle to him, immediately after he had employed, in his exegesis

of the Greek narrative of Herodias' daughter, the expression: "Now,

if I had been Salome--"

Ill fares it with a youth, if he has his hands in his pockets and is

seen by Salome. Before he is aware of the great presence, that stoop

overhangs him, that forefinger points to the tip of his nose, and a

drawling voice says with rhythmic emphasis: "Ee, bless me, my

man, you've _got_--your _hands_--in your _pockets_. Take off your

spectacles, sir. I'm _going_--to _smack_--your _face_."

And he can put his foot down, too. The Bramhallites recently

organised a very successful punitive raid on the local errand boys,

who were getting too uppish, and now he has stopped all "exeats"

for the members of Bramhall House. The town is out of bounds.

Third in importance is my quarrel with Edgar Doe. It began, I think,

with his jealousy of me as Radley's new favourite. Then he has

apparently thrown over all desire for glory in the cricket world and

decided that, for an elect mind such as his, a reputation for

intellectual brilliance is the only seemly fame. He delights to

shock us by boldly saying that he would rather win the Horace Prize

than his First Eleven Colours; and is actually at work, I believe,

on a translation of the Odes into English verse. At any rate, he is

two forms ahead of Penny and me, and has joined the Intellectuals.

He has views on the Pre-Raphaelites, Romanticism, and the Housing

Question.

Maybe, too, I have been very willing for the quarrel to proceed,

because he will persist in his collusion with that mystery-man,

Freedham.

Archibald Pennybet is the same as ever, unless, perhaps, his eyelids

are drooping a little more in satisfaction with himself, and his

nostrils becoming more sensitive to the inferiority of everybody

else.

In a rash moment, one half-holiday, Penny and I made use of the

privilege, to which we became entitled when we completed two years

at Kensingtowe, of strolling across to the Preparatory School

and organising a cricket match between some of the younger

"Sucker-boys." Not being allowed to go down to the town, we thought

there might be fun in playing the heavy autocrat at the "Nursery."

"We'll make these beastly little maggots sit up, unless they play

properly," said Penny. "There shall be no fooling when _we_ umpire."

The Suckers received us with gratifying awe. One of them in a moment

of forgetfulness called Pennybet "sir." He accepted it without

remark, as his due.

For half-an-hour we did well. Six balls went to every "over," no

more and no less. Our decisions, when we were appealed to, were

given promptly and decisively. But the boys were so small, and the

play was so bad, that the novelty soon wore off. Our feeling of

importance died away, when we realised we were umpiring in a match

where the stumps were kept in position by the bails, and there was

no one who could bowl a straight ball, or anyone who could hit it,

if he did. The wicket-keeper, also, gave Penny much trouble; and

sulked because he had been forbidden to stop the swift bowler's

deliveries by holding a coat in front of him and allowing the ball

to become entangled in its folds. My fellow-umpire had occasion to

speak very seriously to him. "Really," he said, "you're a stench in

my nostrils. Mr. Ray, who's kindly umpiring for you at the other

end, never gave me half the cheek you do, when _he_ was a kid." For

a second the little boy wondered if he had made a mistake and Penny

was really a master.

Having given eight balls to an over, I got bored and retired to my

position at square-leg, displeased with the condition on which our

privilege was granted that, having organised a game, we were to

remain at our posts to the end. Someone awoke Penny, who walked with

a yawn to the bowler's wicket, and, graciously putting into his

mouth a huge green fruit-ball, offered by one of the more minute

players, said with this obstruction on his tongue:

"Plo-ay."

When the twenty-eighth ball of that over had been bowled, I went

across to Penny, presented my compliments, and intimated that six

balls constituted an over. In a reply of some length he showed that

he had a sucked fruit-ball in his mouth, which he must of necessity

finish before he called "over," as the word required a certain

rounding of the lips, and the confectionery might shoot out of his

mouth at the effort. An impertinent little junior echoed my

criticism.

"Yes," he protested, "there are six balls to an over."

Penny placed the fruit-ball between his gums and his cheek, and

answered magnificently:

"There are not. There are just as many as I choose to give."

Then he took the fruit-ball on his tongue again and added:

"We-soom your plo-ay."

The bowler having exerted himself twenty-nine times, was a little

tired and erratic, and the thirtieth ball hit Square-leg in the

stomach.

"Wide," announced Penny, without a smile.

The thirty-first ball, amid disorderly laughter, was caught by

Point before it pitched. The batsman meanwhile sat astride his bat:

he was the only person who seemed out of harm's way. Point held up

the ball triumphantly and yelled to Penny: "What's that, umpire?"

"I think it would not be unreasonable," answered Penny, "to call

that a wide."

This was a long sentence, and the fruit-ball shot out about half-way

through.

Relieved of this confectionery, Penny proceeded to give a practical

illustration of "How to bowl." I fear he intended to show off, and

to send down a ball at express speed which should shatter the

stumps. At any rate, while the Suckers watched with breathless

interest, he took a long run and let fly. One thing in favour of

Penny's ball was that it went straight. But it flew two feet over

the head of the batsman, who flung himself upon his face. It pitched

opposite Long-stop.

"Run!" yelled the batsman, picking himself up. "_Bye!_ Run, you

fool! Bye, idiot!" This was addressed to the batsman at the other

end, who was swinging his bat like an Indian club and paying no

attention to the game. He pulled himself together on being appealed

to, and ran, but it was evident that he could not reach his crease,

as Long-stop had accidentally stopped the lightning-ball--much to

his own chagrin--and was hurling it back to the wicket-keeper with

all the enthusiasm of acute agony.

Our unhappy batsman did what excitable little boys always do--flung

in his bat and sprawled on the ground. The bat struck the

wicket-keeper, who had just knocked off the bails. It hit him, so he

said, on his bad place.

"Out," ruled I.

"Over," proclaimed Penny victoriously, as who should say: "There!

I've got a man out for you"; and he retired honourably to the leg

position, where he composed himself for a happy day-dream.

The new bowler at my end began by bowling swift. The wicket-keeper

jumped out of the way, as his mother would have wished him to do,

and Long-stop shut his eyes and hoped for the best. The batsman

blindly waved his bat, and, inasmuch as the ball hit it, and

rebounded some distance, called to his partner, who was mending the

binding on his bat-handle.

"Will you come? Osborne, you fool! Yes. _Yes_. YES! No, no.

YE-E-ES! No--go back, you fool. All right, come. No-no-no. O,

Osborne, why didn't you run that? It was an easy one."

"Silly ass, Osborne," roared Cover-point, quite gratuitously, for no

one had addressed him for the last twenty minutes.

The batsman ran wildly out to the next ball and missed it. The

wicket-keeper successfully stumped him. It was a clear case of

"out," and a shout went up: "How's that?"

"That," said Penny, who had been in a dream and seen nothing, "is

Not Out."

I was disheartened to learn on this occasion that little boys could

be so rude to those who were sacrificing their spare time to teach

them cricket.

"Really," sighed Penny, adjusting his tie, "unless you treat me with

due respect, I will not come and coach you again."

This was greeted with an unmannerly cheer.

"Resume your play," commanded Pennybet. "It was Not Out."

"Why?" loudly demanded the bowler.

Penny seized the only escape from his sensational error.

"Because, you horrid little tuberculous maggot, it was a no-ball.

Besides, you smell."

The little boy looked defiantly at him, and, pointing to me, said:

"Bowler's umpire didn't give 'no-ball.'"

"Then," said Penny promptly, "he ought to have done."

I was so shocked at this unscrupulous method of sacrificing me to

save his reputation that I shouted indignantly: "You're a liar!"

Later a warm discussion arose between the batsman and the bowler as

to whether the former could be out, if "centre" had not been given

to him properly. I took no part in it, but looked significantly at

Pennybet. He gazed reproachfully at me, as much as to say: "How

could you suggest such a thing?" I walked over to him, ostensibly to

ask his advice. The quarrel continued, most of the fieldsmen

asserting that the batsman was out: they wanted an innings.

Unperceived, we strolled leisurely away and disappeared round a

corner. The last thing that I heard was the batsman's voice

shouting: "I'm not an ass. I haven't got four legs, so sucks for

you!"

§2

Reaching the road, we linked arms with the affection born of sharing

a crime and the risk of detection.

"Where are we going to?" asked I.

"Ee, bless me, my man. Down town, of course."

"But it's out of bounds."

"Ee, bless me, my man, don't you know that to me all rules are but

gossamer threads that I break at my will? I'm off to buy sausages. I

haven't had anything worth eating since the holidays."

And so, arm in arm, we marched briskly down the Beaten Track. The

Beaten Track, I must tell you, was a route into the town which

Penny, Doe, and I regarded as our private highway. We would have

esteemed it disloyalty to an inanimate friend to approach the town

by any other channel. It led through the residential district of

Kensingtowe, past a fashionable church, and down a hill. Dear old

Beaten Track! How often have I mouched over it, alone and dreamy,

adjusting my steps to the cracks between its pavement-flags! How

often have I sauntered along it, arm in arm with one of my friends,

talking those great plans which have come to nothing!

We always became confidential on the Beaten Track; and to-day I

suddenly pressed Penny's arm and opened the subject that, though I

would not have admitted it, was the most pressing at the moment.

"I say, why does Doe avoid us now?"

"The Gray Doe," sneered Penny. "Oh, he--She's in love, I suppose.

With Radley."

"Don't drivel," I commanded; "why does he hang about with that awful

Freedham?"

"When you're my age, Rupert," began Penny, in kind and accommodating

explanation, "you'll know that there are such things as degenerates

and decadents. Freedham is one. And very soon Doe will be another."

"Well, hang it," I said, "if you think that, how can you joke about

it, and leave him to go his way?"

"Oh, the young fellow must learn wisdom. And he's not in any danger

of being copped. I'm the only one that suspects; and I guessed

because I'm exceptionally brilliant. Besides, if he wants to go to

the devil for a bit, you can't take his arm and go with him."

"No," said I, "but you can take his arm and lug him back."

"There are times, Rupert," conceded Penny graciously, "when you show

distinct promise. I have great hopes of you, my boy."

"Oh, shut up!" I said, mentally overthrown to find that, without

forewarning of any kind, something had filled my throat like a sob

of temper. What was the matter with me? I unlinked my arm and walked

beside Penny in moody silence, determining that at an early

opportunity I would bring about a quarrel between us which should

not be easily repaired. He, however, was disposed to continue being

humorous, and frequently cracked little jokes aloud to himself.

"Here's the butcher's shop," he explained, pointing to an array of

carcasses; "hats off! We're in the presence of death." And, when he

had purchased his sausages, he stepped gaily out of the place,

saying: "Come along, Rupert, my boy. Home to tea! Trip along at

Nursie's side." Just as I, thoroughly sulky, was wondering how best

to break with him, and deciding to let him walk on alone a hundred

yards, before I resumed my homeward journey, I heard his voice

saying:

"Talking about Doe, there he is. And the naughty lad has been

strictly forbidden to enter the town. Dear, dear!"

It was an acute moment. There, far ahead of us, was Doe in the

company of Freedham, with whom he was turning into a doorway. A pang

of jealousy stabbed me, and with a throb, that was as pleasing as

painful, I realised that I loved Doe as Orestes loved Pylades.

The truth is this: ever since our form had been engaged on Cicero's

"De Amicitia," I had wanted to believe that my friendship for Doe

was on the classical models. And now came the gift of faith. It was

born of my sharp jealousy, my present weariness of Pennybet, and my

heroic resolution to rescue Doe from the degenerate hands of

Freedham. Only go nobly to someone's assistance, and you will love

him for ever. Love! It was an unusual word for a shy boy to admit

into his thoughts, but I was even taking a defiant and malicious

pleasure in using it. I was Orestes, and I loved Pylades.

In the glow of this romantic discovery, I no longer thought Penny

worth any anger or resentment, so I slipped my arm back into his. He

patted my hand with just such an action as an indulgent father would

use in welcoming a sulky child who has returned for forgiveness.

After this we climbed the slope of the Beaten Track at a faster

pace. And then--what an afternoon of strange moods and tense moments

this was!--I encountered on the other side of the road the surprised

gaze of Radley.

It was a very awkward recognition, and I hope he felt half as

uncomfortable as I did. I pinched Penny's arm and hurried him on

quickly.

"Don't push me," he grumbled. "The damage is done. And it's all your

fault for leading me astray. Radley'll tell. He never spares anyone;

least of all, his pets, like you. There's one comfort; I can't be

whacked; I'm too old. But you'll get it, Rupert. Salome's already

done several of the sixteen-year-olds. Cheer up, Rupert!"

"Hang you, I don't want your sympathy," I retorted sullenly. And as

I said it, I passed through Kensingtowe's gates to the punishment

that awaited me within.

§3

We were not summoned for judgment for several uneasy hours. It was

dreary, waiting. About six o'clock I paid a lonesome visit to the

swimming baths, and was glad to find them deserted. Even Jerry

Brisket, the professional instructor, was not in his little private

room. Jerry Brisket, that supreme swimmer, loomed as an heroic

figure to me who fancied myself no common devotee of his art. I had

often thought that my ideal would be to build a private swimming

bath and to employ Jerry at a salary of some thousands as my own

particular coach. But to-night, in spite of this lavish worship, I

was relieved to find him absent. I flung off my clothes and took a

long, splashless dive into the shallow end.

Water was my favourite element, especially the clear, green water of

the baths. I loved to feel that it was covering every part of my

body. With my breast nearly touching the tiled bottom, I swam under

water for a long spell. And, moving down there, like a young eel, I

compared this dip with that in the beautiful Fal of a year ago.

Certainly there was still pleasure, glorious pleasure, in complete

submersion, but on that bejewelled day there was joy above as well

as below the surface. This evening all that awaited me, when I rose

from the transparent water, was punishment and indignity.

"Hang it," I said to myself. "I think I'll stay in the baths. They

can't dive after me here."

With the unreasonableness of guilt I stigmatised all those plotting

my hurt as "they." I did not specialise individuals, possibly

because Radley was one. They were "they"--a contemptible "they."

"They are brutes," I concluded, "and I don't care a hang for any of

them."

Then, in the luxury of defiance, I swam my fastest and most furious

racing-stroke, till my breath gave out with a gasp, my breast felt

like bursting, and my heart beat heavily on my ribs. So I lay supine

upon the water, closed my eyes, and derived a surfeit of joy from

this rest after fatigue.

And, while I was doing that, I suffered a queer thing. Through my

closed lids I saw a yellow atmosphere that was fast whitening. It

seemed to smell very sweet; and the sensation of seeing it and

smelling it was intoxicatingly delightful. It was like an opiate.

What Freedham was doing in the atmosphere I know not, but I saw him,

as one would in a dream. An exquisite sleepiness was entrancing me,

when the cold water rushed in at my ears and mouth, and with an

"Oh!" and a choking, I struggled to the rope. Dizzily, and feeling a

pain in my head and neck, I scrambled out and lay upon the cold

sides of the baths.

"Heavens!" thought I. "That was a close shave. I must have strained

myself and nearly fainted. Why have I got that ass, Freedham, on the

brain?"

At that moment the sound of Jerry Brisket's return caused me to

jump up and dress. I was quite recovered, but tired and depressed.

And, as a result of the curious conditions of the evening, there

seemed to be gathering about me a presentiment of disaster.

When I passed Jerry's door on my way out of the building, I thought

I would like to hear a friendly voice, so I called:

"Good-night, Jerry."

He came to the door in his white sweater and white trousers.

"Good-night, Mr. Ray. Where are you off to now?"

"Well, to tell the truth, I'm off to be walloped."

Jerry was too courteous to seek particulars.

"Oh, bad luck," he said. "Come to the baths this time to-morrow, and

it'll be all over."

"Oh, I don't mind, it, Jerry," I replied. "Good-night"; and, letting

the door swing behind me, I passed out of the baths.

"Good old Jerry," I murmured sentimentally. "By Jove, if I could

only swim like him! Dear--old--Jerry."

An unaccountable melancholy overcame me, as I rambled in this

strain. I sighed: "I think I'm getting too old to be whacked."

And, as I phrased the thought, walking dreamily outside the baths,

the strangest thing of this evening happened. There seemed to be

thrown over me, far more heavily than on that evening up the Fal,

the shadow of my oncoming manhood. And with it came ineffable

longings--longings to live, and to feel; to do, and to be. The vague

wish to avoid the indignity of corporal punishment threw off its

cloak and showed itself to be Aspiration. There, outside the baths,

the Æsthetic awoke in me. The sensation, infinitely sad and yet

pleasing, was so complete that it left me hot-cheeked and

wondering....

In truth, so warm and all-pervading was it that the other day, when

during a short leave from France I stood on the gravel that sweeps

to the entrance of the baths, I felt the memory of that moment of

yearning egoism hanging over the spot like a restless spirit of the

past.

§4

The whole period of Preparation passed in suspense. And, when the

bell had gone, Penny and I found our way to one of the Bramhall

class-rooms, where I sat upon the hot-water pipes (the wisdom of

which proceeding I have since doubted). After about five minutes

there rushed in a bad little boy who, having more relish in the

thought of his message than breath to deliver it, puffed out: "Oh,

there you are. I've searched for you everywhere." Then he paused,

recovered his breath, and actually pointed a finger at us, saying:

"Ee, bless me, my men, Salome wants you in Radley's room."

Penny took the small boy's head and banged it three times on a desk.

In Radley's familiar room we found Salome, who no sooner saw me than

he cried:

"Ee, bless me, my man. Will you _take_--your _hand_--out of your

_pocket_?"

This was such a surprise that I blushed and--oh, accursed

nervousness!--began to giggle. My terror at giggling in the Presence

was so real that I compressed my lips to secure control. But control

was as impossible as concealment. Salome came very close, pointed at

my mouth, and said:

"I think you're _giggling_. Take off that ridiculous expression, my

man. I'm _going_--to _smack_--your _face_."

Sobered in a moment, I composed my features for the punishment and

received it, stinging and burning, on my reddened cheek.

Salome again pointed at me.

"You're a _sportsman_, sir, a _sportsman_, and I _like_ you," an

affection which I at once reciprocated.

"Ee, bless me, my man," he pursued. "What's your horrible name?"

"Ray, sir."

"Well, Ray, I'm going to cane you hard"--(rather crudely expressed,

I thought)--"because your offence is serious, bless me, my man"--(an

unreasonable request at this stage).

He took out his cane and turned first to Pennybet.

"I find, Mr. Pennybet, that, when you were breaking bounds, you

should have been with your _company_--your _company_, sir--at

shooting practice. It's _desertion_, sir--and punishable by _death_.

But I shan't shoot you. You're not _worth_ it--not _worth_ it. I

shan't even cane you, sir. You're too _old_--too _old_."

Penny looked at him, as much as to say he thought his point of view

was very sensible.

"But ee, bless me, my man, take off that complacent expression, or I

feel I may certainly smack your face."

Poor Penny, for once in a way, was rather at a loss, which was all

Salome desired, so he turned to me.

"Ray--I think _that_ was your detestable name--I shall now cane you.

Get _over_, my man--get _over_."

When the ceremony was completed, Salome talked to us so nicely,

although periodically asking us to bless him, that I told myself I

would never break bounds again; thereby making one of those good

resolutions which pave, we are told, another Beaten Track.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FREEDHAM REVELATIONS

§1

The next half-holiday I was walking towards the tuck-shop and

gloomily deciding that Doe's wilful estrangement from me was fast

being frozen into tacit enmity, when I felt an arm tucked most

affectionately into mine. It was done so quietly and quickly that I

nearly leapt a yard at the shock. The arm belonged to Doe.

"Ray, you old ass," he began.

Doe, now sixteen, was not so very different from the small fawning

creature of three years before. Although the perfect curve of the

cheek-line had given place to a perceptible depression beneath the

cheek-bone; although the usual marks of a boy's adolescence--the

slight pallor, the quick blush of diffidence, the slimness of

limb--were all very noticeable in Doe, there was yet much of the

original Baby about his appearance. It could be marked in his soft,

indeterminate mouth, whose flower-like lips seemed always parted; in

his inquiring eyes and unkempt hair; and, at the present moment, in

an artless excitement that I had not seen for many a day.

I tried to drag my arm away, but he held it too tight, and proceeded

to make the remarkable statement:

"You old ass! Surely you've been sulking long enough."

"Well, I like that," replied I, with an empty laugh. "You drop me,

sulk like a pig, and then say it's the other way round--"

"Rot!" he interrupted. "Didn't you deliberately cut me out with

Radley?"

"I don't know what you mean," I said, although the hint that I was

Radley's favourite always gave me a flush of pleasure.

"And haven't you been hanging on to Penny, just to make me

jealous?"

"Never entered my head," I replied promptly, and with truth. "I

leave that sort of thing to schoolgirls like you. But it evidently

did make you jealous."

"_Yes_, it did," he admitted with an engaging smile. This softened

me; and my affection for him began at once to throb into activity.

"_Yes_, it did; and now that you've said you're sorry, I feel

frightfully lively. Let's go and smash a window or something."

His spirits were infectious, and he dragged me off to the study

which his intellectual eminence had recently secured for him. When

we arrived there, he tossed me a bag of sweets, which had clearly

been bought as a means to sugar the reconciliation, and, dropping

into his armchair, stretched his legs in front of him, and said:

"Let's talk as we used to."

I was relieved from the necessity of finding some opening remark by

the bursting into the room of "Molés" White.

If you look up the Latin word "Molés" in the dictionary, you will

find that it means "a huge, shapeless mass"; and all of us had been

very quick to see that this was an excellent description of our

junior house-prefect, White. Moles White was as enormous and ugly in

his dimensions as he was genial and simple in face. You saw at a

glance that he possessed all the traditional kindliness and

generosity of the giant. As he crashed into Doe's study, he was

swinging some books on the end of a strap.

"Found you, Doe," said he. "Look here, Bramhall's got to make the

best house-team it can, which means you must give up slacking at

cricket. You'll play at the nets this evening."

"Heavens! Ray," Doe murmured in mock dismay, as he stared out of

eyes that sparkled with impudence at White's huge frame, "what on

earth is this coming in?"

White smiled meaningly.

"Don't be cheeky now, Doe," he suggested. "No lip, please."

Doe's reply was a laugh, and the question addressed to me:

"I say, Ray, do you think it's an Iguanodon?"

"Well," said White, striding forward and beginning to swing his

books ominously, "if you're asking for trouble, you shall have it."

Doe ducked down and raised his right hand to protect his head.

"I never said it, White," he affirmed, giggling. "Really, I didn't.

You thought I did. I never called you an Iguanodon--I've too much

respect for you."

"Yes, you did. Take your hand away. I'm determined to swing these

books on to your head."

"Ray," shouted Doe between his giggles, "take him away. Don't bully,

Moles! You great beast! Ray, he's bullying me."

White paused. Bullying, even in fun, was a horrible idea. The books

fell limply to his side.

"Be sensible, if you can, Doe. You've got to play this evening."

The change in White's voice prompted Doe to raise his head and look

up from under his arm at his attacker.

"Great Scott, Ray," he blurted out. "If it's not an Iguanodon, it's

a prehistoric animal of some sort."

"My hat!" exclaimed White. "You young devil! Put that hand down

while I smite you over the head with these books." And he made as

though to execute his threat. Doe accordingly retired still further

down into his chair, and placed his elbow to ward off the swinging

books.

"I didn't say it, White, you liar! Shut up, will you? You might hurt

me seriously. Go away. I hate you! Oh, hang it!"--(this was when the

books struck him on the elbow),--"it hurts, Moles. Leave off, while

I rub my elbow."

The gentle giant responded to this reasonable request; the books

dropped; and Doe, looking reproachfully at his executioner, set

about massaging his elbow.

"Ray," he said, when the operation was complete, "is there any known

means of removing this nightmare?"

Immediately his uplifted arm was seized in White's huge paw. Doe's

eyes were sparkling, his cheeks red, and his hair tumbled. His right

arm being now held, he laughed more loudly and nervously and raised

his left.

"By Jove, White," he cried, "if you rouse my ire, I'll get up and

lick you. Let go of my hand--it's not yours. Oh, shut up, you great

swine! Hang it, Ray"--(this with a shriek, half of laughter, half of

anticipation)--"he's got my left hand as well--O, White, I'm sorry."

White held both his victim's wrists in one hand. Too honourable to

take advantage of this, he swung his books at a distance and said:

"You've got to play at the nets, do you hear?"

My friend simulated anger. Struggling to get free, he ejaculated:

"I'll not be ordered about by an Iguanodon. I'm not that sort of

man. O, White, I said I was--he, he, ha!--sorry. I didn't mean to be

rude. I didn't see it in that light--"

"Whack" came the books gently on his back.

"Oh, please, Moles White, please stop. There's a dear old Iguanodon.

Ow--Ow--Ow!"

By this time Doe was much out of breath, and his sentences were

short and broken: "It doesn't hurt. It's lovely! Ray, don't stand

there grinning like this chimpanzee, White."

Suddenly at an upward swing the slender strap broke, and the books

crashed through the window.

"Damn!" said White.

Doe, flushed and dishevelled, picked himself out of his chair.

"That's what comes of bullying, Moles White. I'll pay for it. It was

my beastly fault!"

"No, you won't," said White.

"Don't presume to contradict me, Moles White, or I'll lick you! I

have stated that I'll pay for it."

"No," White decided. "We'll split the difference and go shags."

I felt the old fellow was not displeased at this compromise, for his

purse had its limitations. He withdrew from the scene and left us to

our confidential chat.

When he had gone, there set in a reaction from the excited

liveliness of his visit. Doe looked sadly through the broken pane

and said:

"Isn't Moles a corking old thing? The sort of chap who's naturally

good, and couldn't be anything else if he tried."

Something wistful in the words caused me to see a vision of the

gravel-path sweeping to the doorway of the baths.

"I say, Doe," I began, "have you ever felt that you'd like to

be--something different from the ordinary run?"

Doe swung round on me.

"Have I ever? Why, you know, Rupert, that I'm the most ambitious

person in the world. And, by Jove! I believe I might have done

something great--"

"_Might_ have done!" interrupted I, surprised that he should have

decided at sixteen that his life was earmarked for a failure.

"You'll probably live quite ten years more, so there's still time."

Doe turned again and sent his gaze through the broken window,

replying in a little while:

"Oh, I've lived long enough to know that I'm the sort that's

destined to make a mess of his life. I--oh, hang it, you wouldn't

understand..."

Evidently in Doe, as in me, his manhood had come down the corridor

of the future and met his childhood face to face. One minute before

this he was an irresponsible baby "cheeking" Moles White; now he was

the germinal man, borne down with the weight of life. He paused for

me to plead my understanding, and invite his confidence. But an

awkwardness held me dumb, and he was obliged to continue:

"I wish you could understand, because--Do you know, Rupert, why I

made it up with you this afternoon?" He came away from the window

and sat in a chair opposite me. "It was because I was glowing with a

new resolution. It was the rippingest feeling in the world. I--I had

just decided to cut with Freedham."

Up to this point I had been looking into his face, but now I turned

away. Instinctively I felt that, if he were going to, speak of his

transactions with Freedham, he would be abashed by my gaze. He

rested his elbows on his knees, and began to tie knot after knot in

a piece of string.

"Freedham's an extraordinary creature," he proceeded. "He first got

hold of me when I was at the Nursery. He would get me in a dark

corner, and alternately pet and bully me. I remember his once

holding me in a frightful grip and saying: 'You're so--' (I'm only

telling you what he said, Rupert)--'You're so pretty that I'd love

to see you cry.' He's _that_ type, you know."

For a while Doe, whose cheeks and neck were crimson, knotted his

string in silence.

"Then he used to give me money to encourage me to like him, and dash

it, Ray! I _do_ like him. He's got such weird, majestic ideas that

are different from anyone else's,--and he attracts me. His great

theory is that Life is Sensation, and there must be no sensation--a

law, or no law--which he has not experienced. I believed him to be

right (as I do still, in part) and we--we tried everything together.

We--we got drunk on a beastly occasion in his room. We didn't like

it, but we pushed on, so as to find out what the sensation was. And

then--oh! I wish I'd never started telling you all this--"

He tied a knot with such viciousness that few would have had the

patience to untie it.

"Go on, old chap," I said encouragingly. I was proud of playing the

sympathetic confidant; but, less natural than that, a certain

abnormality in the conversation had stimulated me; I was excited to

hear more.

"Well, he told me that years before he had wanted to see what taking

drugs was like, and he had been taking them ever since. He was mad

keen on the subject and had read De Quincey and those people from

beginning to end. I've tried them with him.... There are not many

things we haven't done together."

Doe tossed the string away.

"I know I might have done well in cricket, but Freedham used to say

that excelling in games was good enough for Kipling's 'flannelled

fools' and 'muddied oafs.' We thought we were superior, chosen

people, who would excel in mysticism and intellectualism."

As he said it, Doe looked up and smiled at me, while I sat, amazed

to discover how far he, with his finer mind, had outstripped me in

the realms of thought. I had no idea what mysticism was.

"And I still think," he pursued, "that Freedham's got hold of the

Truth, only perverted; just as he himself is a perversion. Life _is_

what feeling you get out of it; and the highest types of feeling

are mystical and intellectual. I only knew yesterday what a

perversion he really was. I saw something that I'd never seen

before--he had a sort of paroxysm--like a bad _rigor_; something to

do with the drug-habit, I s'pose--"

A powerful desire came over me to say: "I knew all about his fits

years ago," but it melted before the memory of a far-away promise.

At this point, too, I became perfectly sure that, although Doe's

sudden self-revelation was an intense and genuine outburst, yet he

was sufficiently his lovable self to feel pride in his easy use of

technical terms like _paroxysm_ and _rigor_.

"It frightened me," continued he. "It's only cowardice that's made

me cut with him. I know my motives are all rotten, but no matter; I

was gloriously happy half-an-hour ago, when I had made the

resolution. And now I'm melancholy. That's why I'm talking about

being a great man. You must be melancholy to feel great."

As he said the words, Doe leapt to his feet and unconsciously struck

his breast with a fine action.

"And I sometimes _know_ I could be great. I feel it surging in me.

But I shall only dream it all. I haven't the cold, calculating power

of Penny, for instance. He's the only one of us who'll set the

Thames on fire. At present, Rupert, I've but one goal; and that is

to win the Horace Prize before I leave. If I can do that, I'll

believe again in my power to make something of my life."

§2

I fear I'm a very ignoble character, for this conversation, instead

of filling me with pain at Doe's deviations, only gave me a selfish

elation in the thought that I had utterly routed my shadowy rival,

Freedham, and won back my brilliant twin, who could talk thus

familiarly about mysticism. And now there only remained the very

concrete Fillet to be driven in disorder from the field.

CHAPTER IX

WATERLOO OPENS

§1

And here begins the record of my Waterloo with Fillet.

One June morning of the following year all we Bramhallites were

assembled in the Preparation Room for our weekly issue of "Bank" or

pocket-money; we were awaiting the arrival of Fillet, our

house-master, with his jingling cash-box. Soon he would enter and,

having elaborately enthroned himself at his desk, proceed to ask

each of us how much "Bank" he required, and to deliberate, when the

sum was proposed, whether the boy's account would stand so large a

draft. The boy would argue with glowing force that it would stand

that and more; and Fillet would put the opposing case with

irritating contumacy.

This morning he was late; the corridors nowhere echoed the rattle of

his cash-box. So it occurred to me to entertain the crowd with a

little imitation of Fillet. Seating myself at his desk, I frowned at

a nervous junior, and addressed him thus:

"N-now, my boy, how much b-b-bank do you want? Shilling? B-b-bank

won't stand it. T-take sixpence. Sixpence not enough? Take ninepence

and run away."

The Bramhallites enjoyed my impersonation.

"N-now, Moles--White, I mean--how much b-b-bank do you want? Two

shillings? B-bank won't stand it. Take three halfpence--take it,

Moles, and toddle away."

There were roars of laughter, and a grin from White like the smile

of a brontosaurus.

"N-now, Doe, you don't want any this week--you've come to pay in

some, I suppose. You--oh, damn!"

This whispered oath, accompanied by a dismayed stare at the door,

turned the heads of all in that direction. Fillet, in his carpet

slippers, had come round the corner and was an interested critic of

my little imitation.

Very red, I vacated the seat to its owner and stepped down among the

boys. Without a word he took it in my stead, placed his cash-box on

the desk, and opened his book.

"N-now, White, how much b-b-bank do you want?"

Having heard this before, several boys tittered. Out of nervousness

I tittered too, and cursed myself as I did so. Fillet looked at me

as though he would have liked to repeat the flogging he had given me

many years before. But the blushing boy in front of him was now

seventeen, and taller than he.

When the last account had been duly debited, the Bramhallites

dispersed to their classes. Throughout that day the incident was a

painful recollection for me. I felt I could beat Fillet with cleaner

weapons than an exploiting of his affliction: and the more I thought

of it, the more I decided that I must go and apologise to him. The

sentence to be used crystallised in my mind: "Please, sir, I came to

say I was sorry I was imitating you this morning."

With this little offering I walked in the fall of the evening

upstairs to his study. My knock eliciting a "C-come in," I entered

and began:

"Please, sir, I came to say--" I got no further, for, with a sour

look, he interrupted testily:

"Run away, b-boy, run away."

This rejection of my apology I had never contemplated, and it was

with a sinking heart that I persisted:

"Please, sir, I wanted to--"

"_Run away, boy._ I'm accustomed to dealing with gentlemen."

At once my attitude of submission was changed at Fillet's clumsy

touch into one of hot defiance.

"Indeed, sir," I retorted. "I'm not always so fortunate." I went

quickly out and managed to slam the door. Blood up, I muttered:

"Brute! Beast! Swine! Devil!"

§2

Moles White, who was now the house-captain, was occupied two

afternoons later in discussing with the bloods of Bramhall the

composition of the House Swimming Four for the Inter-house relay

races.

"Erasmus House have a splendid Four," he said. "We've only got three

so far: there's myself and Cully and Johnson."

"And a precious rotten three too," said Doe.

"Well," grumbled White, "there's nobody else in the House who can

swim a stroke; a good many think they can."

"Not so sure," whispered Doe, obscurely. "Come along with me. No,

Moles alone." And he dragged White towards the baths.

Within that beloved building I was trying to see how many lengths I

could swim. It was rather late, and I had the water to myself. I

was doing my sixth length when I saw entering the baths the

ungainly carcass of White with the graceful form of Doe hanging

affectionately on his arm. The latter was explaining that no one

knew how well I could swim, as I had once nearly fainted when

extending myself to the utmost and had gone easy ever since. "But

Rupert can really swim at ninety miles an hour," he concluded.

So White called: "Come here, Ray."

"When you say 'please,'" shouted I, swimming about.

Doe thereupon took the matter in hand and addressed me:

"Now, Ray, I want you to swim your best. Here's a little kiddy

friend of mine I've brought to see you. Mr. Ray, this is Master

Moles."

White ignored his companion's playfulness and asked me:

"Can you swim sixty yards?"

I hurled about five pints of water at him to show that I detected

the insult.

"You old Moles!" said Doe. "Serves you right. Why, he's just

finished swimming about seventy thousand yards."

"Well, sheer off and let's see you do it," ordered White.

I accordingly swam my fastest to the deep end and back.

"My word!" gasped White. "I didn't know you could swim like that."

Doe laughed in his face.

"You loon! He could swim before you were born."

Moles seized Doe by the throat and pretended to push him into the

water, but characteristically saved him from falling by placing an

arm round his waist.

"Apologise," he hissed, "or I'll drop you."

"Moles," replied Doe reproachfully. "At once let me go; or I'll push

you in." I rendered my friend immediate assistance by filling

White's shoes with water.

"Shut up that!" said he, quickly releasing Doe, who retired from the

baths shouting: "Moles, you ugly old elephant, Ray could give you

eighty yards in a hundred, and beat you."

This last impertinence suggested an idea to White. He arranged that

Cully, Johnson, he, and I should have a private race, "in camera,"

as he put. The event came off the following day, and I won it with

some yards to spare. My three defeated opponents were generous in

their praise.

"Golly!" said Johnson. "I thought we'd be last for the Swimming Cup.

But snakes alive! we'll get in the semi-final."

"Why, man," declared Cully. "I see us in the final with Erasmus."

"Final be damned!" said White. "Train like navvies and we'll lift

the Cup!"

§3

Never did human boy have three more sporting associates in a

swimming four than I had in White, Cully, and Johnson. Because I was

a year younger than they it was their pleasure to call me the "Baby

of the Team," and to take a pride in my successes. They would, in

order to pace me, take half-a-length's start in a two-lengths'

practice race, and make me strain every nerve to beat them. Or they

would time me with their watches over the sixty yards, and, all

arriving at different conclusions as to my figures, agree only in

the fact that I was establishing records. Once, when according to a

stop-watch I really did set up a record, Cully, forgetting his

dignity as a prefect in his enthusiasm as a Bramhallite, cried

"Alleluia! alleluia!" and hurled Johnson's hat into the air, so that

it fell into the water.

The members of Erasmus' Four were at first incredulous.

"Heard of Bramhall's find?" said they. "They've discovered a young

torpedo in Ray. He's quite good and they'll probably get into the

final. But we needn't be afraid. They've a weak string in Johnson,

while we haven't a weakness anywhere. However, we'll take no risks."

And so they started a savagely severe system of training.

Meantime White constituted himself my medical adviser, and some such

dialogue as this would take place every morning:

"Now, Ray, got any pain under the heart?"

"No."

"Do you feel anything like a stomach-ache?"

"Only when I see your face."

"Look here, I'd knock your face through your head, if I didn't want

your services so badly. Are you at all stiff?"

"Yes, bored stiff with your conversation."

It was true that there had been no trace of the faintness which had

attacked me a year before. Had there been, I should have kept quiet

about it, for, in that time of excitement, I would willingly have

shortened my life by ten years, if I could have made certain of

securing the Cup for Bramhall. Only one thing marred this period of

my great ascendency; Radley, Bramhall's junior house-master, never

gave me a word of praise or flattery.

That wound to my self-love festered stingingly. I persisted in

letting my thoughts dwell on it. I would frame sentences with which

Radley would express his surprise at my transcendent powers, such

as: "Ray, you're a find for the house"; "I'm glad Bramhall possesses

you, and no other house"; "I don't think I've ever seen a faster

boy-swimmer"; "You're the best swimmer in the school by a long way."

I would turn any conversation with him on to the subject of the

race, and suffer a few seconds' acute suspense, while I waited for

his compliment. I would depreciate my own swimming to him, feeling

in my despair that a murmured contradiction would suffice: but this

method I gave up, owing to the horror I experienced lest he should

agree.

And, when he mercilessly refused to gratify me, I would wander

away and review all the occasions on which he had seen me swim,

recalling how I then acquitted myself; or I would laboriously

enumerate all the people who must have told him in high terms of

my performances. A growing annoyance with him pricked me into a

defiant determination, so that I reiterated to myself: "I'll do

it. I'll win it. I swear I will!"

Bramhall passed easily into the final. Erasmus, too, romped home in

their first and second rounds. So on the eve of the great race it

was known throughout Bramhall that the house must be prepared to

measure itself against Erasmus' famous four.

Betting showed Erasmus as firm favourites, the school critics

looking askance at Johnson, our weakest man. Only the Bramhallites

laid nervous half-crowns on the house, and hoped a mighty hope. That

excellent fellow, White, displayed his unfortunate features glowing

with an expression that was almost beautiful.

As the day of the race led me, steadily and without pity, to the

time of ordeal, I sickened so from nerves that I could scarcely

swallow food; and what I did swallow I couldn't taste. I was glad

when at five o'clock something definite could be done like going to

the baths, selecting a cabin, and beginning to undress. Four minutes

were scarcely sufficient for me to undo my braces, such was the

trembling of my hand. I longed for the moments to pass, so that the

time to dive in could come; every delay ruffled me; I wished the

whole thing were over. It didn't lessen my suffering to watch the

gallery filling with excited boys, and to see the crowd on the

ground-floor make way for Salome himself, followed by Fillet and

Radley as representatives of Bramhall, and Upton as house-master of

Erasmus. Perspiration beaded my forehead. My heart fluttered, and I

began to fear some failure in that quarter. At one moment, when I

was _in extremis_, I would willingly have exchanged positions with

the humblest of the onlookers: at another I caught a faint gleam of

hope in the thought that the end of the world might yet come before

I was asked to do anything publicly. And I conceived of happier boys

who had died young.

The baths were prepared for the event. Across the water, thirty feet

from the diving-station, a large beam was fixed, which the

competitors must reach and touch, before turning round and swimming

back to the starting point. More boys were allowed to crowd into the

gallery and the cabins. Very conspicuous was the expansive white

waistcoat of old Dr. Chapman, who was busy backing Erasmus when

talking to the boys of Erasmus, and Bramhall when questioned by

Bramhallites. Fillet, as master of Bramhall; Upton, as master of

Erasmus; and Jerry Brisket, as a neutral, were appointed judges.

White gathered the Bramhall four into his cabin and arranged with

sanguine comments that we should swim in this order:

1. Himself--to give us a good start.

2. Johnson--to lose as little as possible of the fine lead

established.

3. Ray--to make the position absolutely certain.

4. Cully--to maintain the twenty-yards' lead secured by Ray.

"See, Ray," he said to me, after he had dismissed the others, "you

swim third--last but one."

"Ye--es," I stuttered.

"Nervous?" he inquired softly.

I smiled and made a grimace. "Beastly."

He gripped my hand in his powerful fist and whispered: "Rot! you are

certain to do everything for us. My heart is set on winning this and

staggering the school."

I smiled again. "You're a ripping chap, and I'm sorry if I've ever

cheeked you."

Sudden cheering told us that the great Erasmus four had emerged from

their cabins. They were as fine a little company of Saxon boys as

ever school could show; comely, tall, and fair-skinned. On the left

side of the diving-boards they took up their pre-arranged positions:

Atwood, first; Southwell Primus, behind him; Lancelot, third (and

therefore my opponent); and then Southwell Secundus. And all four

had tied on their heads the black and white polo-caps of the school.

Upton looked with satisfaction upon his house's representatives;

while Dr. Chapman, standing near, exclaimed: "Fine young shoots of

yours, Uppy. I tell you, this is England's best generation. Dammit,

there are three things old England _has_ learnt to make: ships, and

poetry, and boys."

Now, amid less resounding but still enthusiastic applause, the

Bramhall four assumed positions on the right. White stood on the

diving-mat; behind him, Johnson, frowning; next myself; and lastly

Cully. We were of very varying heights, from White, whose huge

proportions exaggerated the difference, to little thick-set Cully,

who was the shortest of all. And only these two wore the polo-cap.

So both fours stood before the multitude, inviting comparison:

Erasmus, a team; Bramhall, a scratch lot.

Behind me Cully observed the contrast, and, striving with courage to

belie his agitation, murmured: "Look at Erasmus. Did you ever see

such a measly lot? If we can't beat that crew, Ray, my boy, we must

be duffers," to emphasise which remark he tickled me under both

armpits, so that, nearly jumping out of my skin, I fell forward on

to Johnson, who fell forward on to White, who, having nobody to fall

forward on to, fell prematurely into the water. This extra item was

loudly "encored," and White scrambled back to his place and bowed

his acknowledgments.

Salome, as starter, thereupon addressed the competitors.

"Ee, bless me, my men, I shall say 'Are you ready? Go!'"

His words were like a bell for silence. Upton and Fillet eyed the

swimmers narrowly.

"_Are you ready? Go!_"

And then a calamity supervened. While Atwood dived with the grace of

a swallow, White, well--White missed his dive; he leapt into the

air, his great arms and legs appeared to hang limply down, and his

body struck the water with a splash that set the whole surface in a

turmoil. "Moles has gone a belly-flopper," shouted the crowd, as it

wept with laughter. "Good old Moles, 'a huge, shapeless mass!'" I

was too nervous to laugh, and wished that I had trousers on, for my

limbs were trembling so noticeably that I felt everybody must be

studying them. Johnson swore. Cully said: "Bang goes the Cup!" But

White rose and started furiously to recover the lost ground,

thrashing the water with his limbs. Bravely done! How the building

cheered, as his long arms swung distances behind them! But he

failed. Atwood, swimming with coolness, kept and increased the

advantage; and, accompanied by a din from his housemates and an

all-embracing smile from Upton, touched the rope beneath the

diving-mat full two yards in front. Over his head dived Southwell

Primus, while Johnson, in an agony, yelled to White to hurry his

shapeless stumps. Moles, with a last tremendous stretch, touched the

rope, and Johnson plunged splendidly to his work. I took up my

position on the mat and helped White to flounder out.

"Ray," were his first words, "it's up to you now. I'm awfully sorry

I muddled it, but _you'll_ make it good. I know you will--you must.

I shall weep if we go down."

"I'll try," I said.

Meanwhile Johnson, as is often the case with the weakest man,

outstripped the most hazardous faith. To the joy of Bramhall he

matched Southwell Primus with a yard for his yard. But, even so, his

pace couldn't eat up the lost ground; and the Erasmus man touched

home still two yards in front of the Bramhallite. In flew Lancelot,

my opponent; and, with the coming of Johnson, it would be my turn.

The Bramhallites, in a burst of new hope, shouted sarcastically: "Go

it, Lancelot. Ray's coming. He's just coming." I got the spring in

my toes, watched carefully to see Johnson touch the rope beneath me,

and then, to the greatest shout of our supporters, dived into the

beloved element.

They told me (but probably it was in their enthusiasm) that it was

the best and longest racing-dive I had ever done; that, remaining

almost parallel to the surface, I just pierced the water as a knife

pierces cheese. All I know is that at the grasp of the cool water

every symptom of nerves left me: and, with my face beneath the

surface, and the water rushing past my ears, half shutting out a

frenzied uproar, I raced confidently for the beam. The position of

Lancelot I cared not to know. My one aim was to cover the sixty

yards in record time; and, so doing, to pass him. On I shot, feeling

that my arms were devouring the course; and, some five strokes

sooner than I expected, became conscious that I was near the beam.

In an overarm reach I scraped it with my finger-tips. Swinging

round, I swam madly back. Extending myself to the utmost, I felt as

if every stroke was swifter than its predecessor. Now my breath grew

shorter and my limbs began to stiffen; but all this proved a source

of speed, for, in a spirit of defiance of nature, I whipped arms

and legs into even faster movement; it was my brain against my body.

Then there came into view the rope, which I touched with a reach.

Making no attempt to grasp it, for I seemed to be travelling too

rapidly, I saw the atmosphere darken with the shadow of Cully

passing over my head, and crashed head-first into the end of the

baths. Not stunned, for the cold water refreshed me, I turned

immediately to see if I had really got home before Lancelot. He was

still in the water, three yards from the rope.

§4

That moment, while many hands helped me out of the water; while the

building echoed with cheers and whistles; while White, too happy to

speak, beamed upon the world; while fists hammered me on the back;

while Cully, splendidly swimming, made the victory sure; I

experienced such a happiness as would not be outweighed by years of

subsequent misery. Though my limbs were so stiff that it was pain to

move them, they glowed with diffused happiness; though my heart was

fluttering at an alarming pace, it beat also with the electric

pulsations of joy: though my breath was too disturbed for speech,

yet my mind framed the words: "I've done it, I've done it"; though

my head ached with the blow it had received, it was also bursting

with a delight too great to hold. I had never done anything for the

house before, and now I had won for its shelf the Swimming Cup.

They helped me to my cabin, and, as I sat there, I composed the tale

of success that I would send to my mother. Then I stood up to dress,

and, in my excitement, put on my shirt before my vest. There was a

confusion of cheers within and without the building; and Upton,

Fillet, and Jerry Brisket, the judges, were to be seen in animated

debate, while many others stood round and listened. Dazed, faint,

and unconscious of the passage of momentous events, I took no notice

of them, but drank deeply of victory. It exhilarated me to

reconstruct the whole story, beginning with my early stage-fright

and ending with the triumphant climax, when I crashed into the end

of the baths.

I was indulging the glorious retrospect when there broke upon my

reverie a sullen youth who said:

"Well, Ray, we haven't won it after all."

There was a hitch in my understanding, and I asked:

"What d'you mean?"

"You were disqualified."

"I!" It was almost a hair-whitening shock. "I! What? Why? What for?"

"They say you dived before Johnson touched the rope. Nobody believes

you did."

So then; I had _lost_ the cup for Bramhall. The lie! Too old to vent

suffering in tears, I showed it in a panting chest, a trembling lip,

and a dry, wide-eyed stare at my informant. Backed by a disorder

outside, he repeated: "Nobody believes you did."

All happiness died out of my ken. Conscious only of aching limbs, a

fluttering heart, uneven breath, and a bursting head, I cried:

"I didn't. I didn't. Who said so?"

"Fillet--Carpet Slippers."

"The liar! The liar!" I muttered; and, with a sudden attack of

something like cramp down my left side, I fell into a sitting

position, and thence into a huddled and fainting heap upon the

floor.

CHAPTER X

WATERLOO CONTINUES: THE CHARGE AT THE END OF THE DAY

§1

While I was recovering there fell the first thunderdrops of mutiny.

A youth at the back of the gallery, on intercepting the flying

message that Fillet had demanded my disqualification and Jerry

Brisket had ended by supporting him, roared out a threatening

"_No!_" Maybe, had he not done so, there would never have been the

great Bramhall riot. But many other boys, catching the contagion of

his defiance, cried out "_No!_" The crowd, recently so excited, was

easily flushed by the new turn of events, and shouted in unison

"_No!_" Isolated voices called out "Cheat!" "Liar!" Dr. Chapman, as

tactless as he was kindly, declared to those about him that Fillet's

judgment was at fault, and thus helped to increase the uproar. The

disaffection spread to the Erasmus men, who said openly: "We don't

want the beastly cup. Bramhall won it fair and square."

And then came the report that I, on receiving the news, had fainted.

This, by provoking deeper sympathy with the hero and greater

execration of the villain, acted like paraffin oil on the flames.

Before the masters realised that anything more than disappointment

was abroad, rebellion looked them in the face.

Salome saw it and knew that, if his short but brilliant record as

headmaster was not to be abruptly destroyed, he must rise to prompt

and statesmanlike action. His first step was to summon all the

prefects in the building and say:

"Ee, bless me, my men, clear the baths."

The prefects quickly emptied the building of all boys; but outside

the door they could do no more than link arms like the City Police

and keep back a turbulent mob. Then Salome, accompanied by Fillet,

Upton, and Radley, passed with dignity through his pupils. He was

received in an ominous silence.

Now, behind this revolt there was a hidden hand; and it was the hand

of Pennybet. To effect a _coup d'état_ and to control and move blind

forces were, we know, the particular hobbies of Pennybet. Here this

evening he found blind disorder and rebellion, which, if they were

not to die out feebly and expose the rebels to punishment, must be

guided and controlled. So he flattered himself he would take over

the reins of mutiny, and hold them in such a clandestine manner that

none should recognise whose was the masterhand. He would cross

swords with Salome. As he said to me the following day: "_I_ ran

that riot, Rupert, and I never enjoyed anything so much in my life."

His method outside the baths was to keep himself in the background

and to whisper to boys, at various points on the circumference of

the vast and gathering mob, battle orders, which he knew would be

quickly circulated. They were really his own composition, but, like

a good general keeping open his means of retreat, he attributed them

to some visionary people, who, in the event of failure, could bear

the brunt of the insurrection.

"Some of the chaps are talking about a real organised revolt. How

corking!"

"The idea seems to be that it's no good doing anything, unless it's

done on a large scale. I shall stick by the others and see what they

do."

"You're to pass the word, they say, to keep massed. I suppose their

game is that small bodies can be dispersed, but we can't be touched

if we're all caked together. You'd better pass that on and explain

it."

"There are to be no dam black-legs. I've just heard that any who

slink off will be mobbed."

"What are we waiting for? Can't say. Depends who's managing this

shindy. You can be sure somebody's organising it, and we'll do what

the others do. Toss that along."

Really, Penny didn't know what his great crowd _was_ waiting for. He

had not had time to formulate a plan, but had contented himself with

keeping his forces together. And, while, closely compacted, they

swayed about, unconscious that they were the plaything of one cool

and remarkable boy, he hit upon the scheme of an offensive. He

decided that it would be futile to fight here, where all the

school-prefects were concentrated; it would be better to transfer

the attack to the courtyard of Bramhall House, where only the

Bramhall prefects would have to be reckoned with. To stay here was

to attempt a frontal attack. No, he would retreat as a feint, and

outflank the school-prefects by a surprise movement in the direction

of Bramhall.

"Have you heard?" he said. "We're all to disperse and meet again in

five minutes in Bramhall courtyard. I wonder what's in the wind."

Penny knew that not a single boy would fail to arrive at the

advertised station, if only to see what _was_ in the wind; and as

the crowd disintegrated and the prefects strolled away, thinking the

mutiny had petered out, he murmured to himself: "A crowd's an easy

thing for a man to handle."

§2

So it was that there was silence everywhere when, returning to

consciousness, I found myself in the empty baths with Dr. Chapman

looking down upon me.

"One day we must thoroughly overhaul you, young man," he said.

"There may be a weakness at your heart. How're you feeling now?"

"Oh, all right, thanks."

"Bit disappointed, I suppose?"

"Rather!"

"Frightfully so?"

I didn't answer. His words filled my throat with a lump.

"Would blub, if you could, but can't, eh?"

The question nearly brought the tears welling into my eyes. He

watched them swell, and said:

"As a doctor, I should tell you to try and blub, but, as an old

public-schoolboy, I should say 'Try not to.' Do which you like, old

man. Both are right. I'll not stay to see."

And, without looking round, he withdrew from the building.

About ten minutes later I found myself in the deserted playing

fields. Knowing nothing of any breaches of the peace, I crossed the

road and passed through the gateway into the courtyard of Bramhall

House. Immediately a great roar of cheers went up, I was seized by

excited hands, raised on to the shoulders of several boys, and

carried through a shouting multitude to the boys' entrance, where I

was deposited on the steps.

Probably not a soul knew that Salome was looking down from the

window of Fillet's study and watching the effect of my arrival. As

soon as the theatre of hostilities had changed from the baths to

Bramhall House, he, too, had crossed the road and entered unobserved

by Fillet's private doorway. He knew well enough that of all the

outposts in his schools' system of discipline Bramhall was the

weakest held. The house was under the sway of an ineffective master

with a stinging tongue; and trouble would have stirred long ago had

it not been for the heavy hand of the junior house-master, Radley,

whom Salome's predecessor had placed there to strengthen the

position. And insubordination had been not uncommon since the

accession of the too genial White to the captaincy.

In justice to White I must say that, if he had been present this

evening, he would have done his best to quell the disturbance. But

the decision of the judges had no sooner reached him than he had

disappeared from the sight of men. As a matter of fact his great

heart was breaking in the privacy of the science buildings. The only

other house-prefects were, strangely enough, the redoubtable Cully

and Johnson, who had sought consolation by retiring together to a

café in the town. So, when Salome arrived at Fillet's study, there

were no prefects available to disband the rebels. What was he to do?

It would be quite inexpedient for a master to venture himself into

the field of fire. If he suffered indignity, severe punishment would

be necessary, and that might provoke further defiance. Then again,

an alien prefect from another house would have little hope of

success on Bramhall territory. Truly Salome was out in a storm.

Hardly had they placed me on the steps, very surprised and

gratified, before Pennybet roared out:

"Was it true that you cheated, as Fillet tried to make out?"

"No!" I cried.

If I had been a nobler youth, I should have assumed that Fillet

acted conscientiously from a mistake. But I believed, and wanted to

believe, that his had been a piece of deliberate revenge; that,

recalling my imitation of his affliction, he had determined to rob

me of my triumph. So, being a vindictive young animal, I declared to

the mob what I conceived to be the truth. And all of them agreed,

while many began to hoot.

"Now, I've been sent by some boys at the back," said Penny, "to tell

you that what you've got to do is to go up to Fillet's room and

tender him a mock-apology for losing the Cup for his house. We're to

cheer ironically and hoot down here, and make a hell of a noise.

Then if he says 'Are those young devils cheering you or hooting me?'

you're to say 'They're doing both, sir.' It's a good scheme, whoever

invented it, because he can't touch you for civilly apologising and

then for telling the truth when you are asked a question."

The idea fired me. Aye, it would be good to attack in a last charge

and beat old Fillet, while I had all his house in fighting array

behind me. It would be good that he, who had rejected my serious

apology, should be obliged to hear my contemptuous one, backed by

the tumult and hooting of half the school. Never had I thought that

my decisive victory, for which I had waited years, would assume

these splendid proportions.

Into the house I went, flushed and determined, and quite unaware

that by invading Fillet's study I should walk into the arms of the

head master himself. Up the stairs I rushed, but, as I set foot upon

the first landing, Radley, coming out of his room, stood in the way

of my further ascent.

"Come in here a minute," he said.

"Sir, I can't--"

He seized me by the right wrist and swung me almost brutally into

his room. I was a muscular stripling, and he meant me to feel his

strength. Suddenly disconcerted, I heard the door slam, and found

that Radley was face to face with me. My breast went up and down

with uncontrollable temper, while my wrist, all red and white with

the marks of powerful fingers, felt as if it were broken.

"Where were you going?" he demanded, his hard mouth set.

"To Mr. Fillet's study," I snapped, purposely omitting the "sir."

"What for?"

"To apologise for losing the Swimming Cup."

"In a spirit of sincerity or one of scoffing?"

It was with no desire for veracity, but as a challenge to fight,

that I replied: "One of scoffing."

"Good." Radley's grey eyes unveiled some of their gentleness, "you

can tell the truth still. Now, Ray, the shock of your disappointment

has deprived you of reason, or you, of all people, would see that

this tomfoolery outside is unsportsmanlike in the extreme."

"But, sir," I ventured, surprised and rather pleased to hear myself

mannerly again, "every boy declares I didn't dive too soon."

"But unfortunately, Ray," replied Radley, also pleased, "every boy

was not appointed a judge, and your housemaster was. Now, do you

think that the judge's decision can be overruled by a mere counting

of the heads that disagree with him? I put it to you; undo the

damage you've done in associating yourself with this exhibition

outside--at this moment you wield more influence than any other boy

in the school--go out and establish order."

"Sir, I can't, sir. I'm their sort of deputy."

"Ray, there's a wave of rebellion outside, and you're nothing more

important than the foam on the crest of the wave. Look here, you're

a magnificent swimmer, the best in the school by a long way"--thus

came the word of praise for which I had hungered so long--"well, a

good swimmer will go out and breast the wave."

As he said it, he laid his hand gently upon my shoulder, and I felt,

as I did once before, that in his peculiar sacramental touch there

was something given by him and taken by me.

"But, sir," I said, desiring to justify myself, "I couldn't help

thinking that Mr. Fillet did it on purpose to pay me out."

Radley frowned. "You mustn't say such things. But, were it so, any

fool can be resentful, while it takes a big man to sacrifice himself

and his petty quarrels for the good of great numbers. You will do it

to save the school from hurt. I have always believed you big enough

for these things."

My answer must have showed Radley how sadly I was less than his

estimate of me.

"But, sir, if I turn back now they'll say I funked."

"Exactly; then go out and face their abuse. Go out and get hurt. I'm

determined your life shall be big, so begin now by learning to stand

buffeting. Besides, Ray, does it matter to a strong swimmer if the

wave beats against him?"

I answered nothing, but gazed out of the window. And Radley shot

another appeal--a less lofty one, but it flew home. Arrows pierce

deeper, if they don't soar too high.

"Ray, _they'll_ say you funked your master, if you don't go up to

Mr. Fillet's study; _I_ shall say you funked the boys, if you don't

go out to them. You must choose between their contempt and mine."

I looked down at my boots.

"Which would you rather have, their contempt or mine?"

"Theirs, sir."

Radley was quite moved when I answered him thus; and it was a little

while before he proceeded:

"I might have stopped your access to Mr. Fillet's study by telling

you that the head master was waiting for you there. But I wanted you

to stop from your own high motives, and not from fear. Come along

now; we'll go together."

We ascended the stairs to the study and entered. Salome at once

raised his long figure from his seat and, pointing at my tie, said:

"Ee, bless me, my man, you're very slovenly; put your tie straight."

I blushed and did so.

Then he turned to Radley.

"Did you find him in the right disposition?"

"Yes, sir."

It would not have been I if at this "Yes, sir" of Radley's my mind

had not run up an irrelevant alley, in which I found myself

wondering that Radley, who was always called "sir," should ever have

to call anyone else "sir." Perhaps I was staring dreamily into

vacancy, for Salome said:

"Bless me, I'm very glad to hear that his disposition is all right.

But is the boy a fool? Why does he stand staring into vacancy like a

brainless nincompoop?"

I turned redder than ever and wondered at whom to look so as to

avoid vacancy, and what to do with my hands. Nervously I used the

right hand to button up my coat, and then put it out of mischief in

my pocket.

"Good God, man!" cried the Head. "Take that hand out of your

pocket!"

I took it quickly out and unbuttoned one coat-button: then, for lack

of something to do with the hand, did the button up again. I decided

to keep the miserable member fingering the button. To make matters

worse Salome rested his eyes like a searchlight on the hand. At last

he looked distressingly straight at my face.

"Ray," he asked, "are you a perfect fool?"

"No, sir," I said, and grinned.

The Head turned to my housemaster for his testimony.

"Mr. Fillet, is the boy a fool?"

"One couldn't call him a _fool_," replied Fillet, obviously

intending the conclusion: "One might, however, call him a _knave_."

The Head turned to Radley.

"Mr. Radley, is he a fool?"

"He's anything but a fool, sir; and he's still less of a knave,"

said Radley, angry and caring only to repudiate Fillet's innuendo.

"Ray," Salome was again staring me out of countenance. "Do you ever

do any work?"

"Yes, sir," I said brightly. It was kind of him to ask questions to

which I could honestly answer in the affirmative. I did occasionally

do some work.

"Mr. Fillet?" queried Salome, desiring the housemaster to have his

say.

"I suppose there are idler boys," announced Fillet grudgingly; and

it was open to anyone to hear in his words the further meaning;

"but, on the other hand, there are many more studious and more

deserving." The fact is, the little man was irritated that Radley

should have tried to contradict him before the Head.

"Mr. Radley?" pursued Salome, as though he were bored with the

evidence, but realised that everyone must be allowed his turn to

speak.

"Ray has always worked well for _me_," Radley promptly answered,

and we all knew he meant it as a second stab for Fillet.

Salome once more fixed me with his disconcerting stare.

"Ray," he asked, "have you any glimmerings of moral courage?"

"I don't know, sir," said I, wondering where the conversation was

leading.

The Head, apparently tired out by this catechising, contented

himself with turning his face in the direction of Fillet for his

endorsement or denial.

"He's as bold as they make 'em," said Fillet; and this time the

double meaning was as clear as before: "the boy is utterly

shameless."

The Head turned to Radley, who answered with a snap:

"Yes, he's plenty of courage; and what's better, he's easily

shamed."

"Bless me, are you any good whatever at games?" continued the weary

catechist.

"I can swim a bit, but I'm not much good at anything else."

"As he says, he swims a bit," corroborated Fillet. "But I don't know

what else he can do."

"He's the best swimmer in the school," snapped Radley, "and will one

day be the best bowler."

"Well, bless me, my man, have you any position or influence with

your schoolfellows?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Hm!" sneered Fillet, whose temper was gone. "He has his

_confederates_."

"Yes," said Radley, "he has a _very loyal following_."

I think it pleased the drowsy Head to see two of his masters boxing

over the body of one of his boys.

"Well, well," he said, "I'm glad, Ray, to hear you give such a good

account of yourself. We are satisfied, I may say, with your prowess

in the baths this evening--you did your best, sir, you did your

best--and we are satisfied with the attitude you have taken up in

regard to this nonsensical business outside--"

"But, sir," I began, deprecatingly.

"God bless me, my man, don't interrupt! I tell you, we are

satisfied. We don't sigh for the _moon_; and we're not talking of

your shortcomings. We haven't _time_, bless me, we haven't _time_.

We're only talking of your virtues, which won't occupy many minutes.

We are satisfied that you're not altogether a fool--that you do

some work--that you have some moral courage--that you're an

athlete--and--what else was the matter, with him, Mr. Radley?--oh,

that you have some position with your schoolfellows. We make you a

house-prefect, sir, a house-prefect."

Staggered beyond measure, I suppose I showed it in my face, for

Salome continued:

"Ee, my man, take off that ridiculous expression. I congratulate

you, sir--congratulate you."

And I mechanically shook hands with him. Then Radley gripped my

fingers and nearly broke the knuckle-bones. Fillet also formally

proffered his hand, and I pressed it quite heartily. It was no good

gloating over a man when he was down.

After this ceremony all waited for Salome to clinch proceedings,

which he did as offensively as possible by saying:

"Ee, bless me, my man, don't stand there idling all day. Go out at

once and establish order."

I went slowly down the stairs to the entrance, and, facing the

crowd, was greeted with a fire of questions: "Did you do it?" "What

did he say?" "How did he take it?" "Didn't you do it?"

"No," I said, and there was a temporary silence.

"Why not? Why not?"

"Because it wasn't the thing."

While no more eloquence came to my lips, plenty flowed from those of

the boys before me. For a moment their execration seemed likely to

turn upon me. At last I made myself heard.

"You see," I shouted, "only cads dispute the decision of the

referee."

"Yes, but there are exceptions to every rule," said Penny's voice.

And here I sipped the sweets of authority.

"Well, there isn't going to be any exception in this case," I said.

The crowd detected something humorous in my high-handed sentence and

laughed sarcastically. So, giving up all attempts to be persuasive,

I said bluntly:

"Look here, Salome's upstairs, and he's made me a prefect and sent

me down to establish order."

There were elements of greatness in Pennybet. He willingly

acknowledged that the _coup d'état_ was not his but Salome's, and

the riot must inevitably crumble away. So he made a point of leading

the cheers that greeted my announcement, and, coming forward, was

the first to congratulate me. His example was extensively followed,

while he looked on approvingly, as though it had all been his doing,

and chirruped every now and then: "This is the jolliest day I've

spent at Kensingtowe."

CHAPTER XI

THE GREAT MATCH

§1

The next year was 1914. It found Pennybet at Sandhurst; Doe

brilliantly high in the Sixth Form, and, since he was a classical

scholar and a poet, first favourite for the Horace Prize. In the

cricket annals of Kensingtowe it was a remarkable year. Throughout

the Summer Term victory followed victory. The M.C.C., having heard

of Kensingtowe's super-batsmen, sent a strong team against us, which

went under, amid cheering that lasted from 6 to 6.30 p.m. The

_Sportsman_ spoke of our fast bowler and captain as the "Coming

Man." We called him "Honion," partly because his head, being

perfectly bald, resembled that vegetable, and partly because he

enjoyed the prefix "The Hon." before his name. Yes, I am speaking of

the Hon. F. Lancaster, who appeared for a few moments like a new

comet in the cricket heavens, just as the thundercloud of war

blotted everything out. When the cloud should roll away, that new

comet would be no longer there.

As the term drew to its close, and the world to the War, the cricket

enthusiasm possessing Kensingtowe focussed itself on the annual

fixture, "The School _v._ The Masters." For eight years the Masters,

thanks to their captain, Radley, had won with ease. The previous

year their task had been more difficult, for the shadow of "Honion"

was already looming. This year that shadow overspread the world.

We had conquered everywhere, and this was our last fixture. We would

win: we _must_ win. If Radley could be eliminated from the Masters'

team--if, for instance, some arsenic could be placed in his tea--our

victory would be a foregone conclusion. It was a question of

"Honion" _v._ Radley. The enthusiasm swelled and burst the

boundaries of the school. Local papers took up the subject. London

papers, in small-print paragraphs, copied them. Party feeling ran

quite high outside the school: Middlesex supporters desired the

triumph of the Masters, which would be the triumph of S.T. Radley,

their hero; Sussex supporters backed the School, for they knew that

"Honion" Lancaster was to come to them. There was no party within

the school, the school being solid for "The School."

One day Radley tapped me on the shoulder.

"Why don't you try to get in the Team?" asked he. "You're the best

bowler in the Second Eleven."

I grinned, and represented that such a consummation was of all

earthly things impossible.

"I don't see why," said he. "The school's batting talent is great,

but the bowling's weak."

Ye Gods! Had he ever heard of Honion?

"O, sir," I remonstrated, "but our strength lies in Honion--in

Lancaster, I mean."

Radley smiled.

"What other bowler of any class have you?"

It was true. I mentioned Moles White as a fine slow bowler, and

could think of no more "star-turns."

"Well, you come," said Radley, "and bowl at my private net every

evening. Your leg-breaks are teasers. I was talking to Lancaster

this morning, and he says he doesn't know who will be the last man

of the Eleven. Why shouldn't it be you?"

So evening after evening I bowled to Radley, who coached me

enthusiastically. I think that he was making a fascinating hobby of

training his favourite pupil for the Team, much as an owner delights

in running a favourite horse for the Derby. And, when one evening I

uprooted his leg-stump twice in succession, he said:

"Good. Now we shall see what we shall see."

In the meantime Lancaster had buttonholed Doe.

"You used to be a great cricketer, usedn't you?"

"When I was a boy, Honion," said Doe.

"And you've slacked abominably."

"Thou sayest so, Honion."

"Well, my son, the last place in the Team is vacant. You should be

too good for the Second. Practise like fury, and the situation's

yours."

§2

"What do you think, Doe?" said I. "Radley's making me sweat to get

into the Team."

A momentary pain and jealousy overspread Doe's face. Quickly

passing, it gave place to a whimsical glance, as he rejoined:

"What do you think? Honion's doing the same with me."

"Look here, then," said I, as much despairingly as generously, "I'll

stand down. You'll be fifty times better than I shall."

"You won't do anything of the sort. Don't you see Radley's running

you as a candidate to spite me? No, we'll fight this out, you and I.

Shake on it, and good luck to your candidature!"

"You ripping old tragedy hero!" answered I. "Good luck to yours."

Now, all Kensingtowe amused itself speculating who would be the last

man. Many names were mentioned, but Ray was not one of them. Bets

were made, and the odds were slightly in favour of Doe. The

sentiment of the school said that he ought to be played on the

strength of the brilliant things he might do.

The match drew nearer, and the secret as to the last man was

severely kept, if, indeed, any decision had been come to. But Doe

was establishing himself as favourite. Every day a crowd surrounded

the Second Eleven net, where he, with his face suffused in colour

and his hair glistening with moisture, was striving to create the

necessary impression. Honion, as general, surrounded by his

staff-officers in their caps and colours, sometimes stood by the net

and pulled his chin contemplatively. And, if Doe made a fine

off-drive, all the onlookers (and Doe himself) turned and glanced at

Honion, as though for a sign from Heaven. But the great man's face

betrayed no emotion.

On the day before the match, which was to be a one-day game, Honion

might have been seen crossing the field from the pavilion, where a

council of war had just concluded. He was approaching the

school-buildings, and, like the Pied Piper, had an enormous crowd

of small boys at his back. In his hand was the paper which bore the

list of the Team.

"Who is it? Who is it?" demanded the crowd.

"Wait and see," said Lancaster, as great captains do.

And at that moment a first spot of rain fell. Honion looked up

apprehensively at a clouding sky. "I thought so," said he; and the

weighty words were passed from lip to lip.

The multitude swelled as the Captain drew near the notice-boards.

Rumour stalked abroad and loudly proclaimed that the lot had fallen

upon Doe. That young cricketer was walking with me at the tail of

the procession, very nervous but fairly confident. As for me, my

heart was fluttering, and there was an emptiness within.

"Come and tell me who it is," I said to Doe. "You'll find me

trembling like a frightened sparrow in the study."

With that I left him, and, going to our study, stood gazing out of

the window at a sudden shower of rain. To nerve myself for any shock

of disappointment I muttered monotonously some old words of

Radley's: "Does it matter to a strong swimmer if the wave beats

against him? Does it matter--does it matter--" Soon a roar of many

voices was heard in the distance. The list was up. I could not tell

whether they were cheering in triumph or groaning in dismay. Then

someone ran along the corridor and burst in. I remained looking out

of the window lest the expression on my friend's face should betray

the secret which I longed but dreaded to hear.

"My dear old fellow," said he, "it's--"

It was coming now. What a long time he took to tell it.

"It's _you_!"

"Good Lord!"

I had swung round on him.

"And I hope you take all the wickets," said he, with a smile of

generosity that he wished me to observe.

I couldn't speak, but turned again to look out of the window. The

rain was beating heavily against the panes. And Doe said nothing

till, being in a chastened mood, he resumed:

"I think you'll always cut me out, Rupert, because you're the solid

stuff, while I'm all show. You left me nowhere in Radley's good

books, and now in cricket--"

"But you leave me nowhere in brain-work," objected I, feeling that

the handsome appreciation, which he had tossed to me, ought to be

returned like a tennis ball.

"Oh, yes, of course, there _is_ that," he assented. "And I may yet

have won the Horace Prize."

Just then the kindly White, coming to express his sympathy, broke

into the study and exclaimed:

"Well, we've boosted you out all right, Doe."

"Why, had I been chosen at one time, then?" asked Doe, seizing upon

this little sop to his pride.

"Of course, but look at the rain. It'll be a bowlers' wicket, and

the Skipper's done a daring thing. The school's never known it, but

Ray's been our difficulty, ever since Radley started booming him."

Doe brought his lips firmly together, and turned on me with a bright

smile.

"Radley's won this journey," he said, "but let him know I was the

first to congratulate you."

§3

By ten o'clock on the Great Day a huge crowd had assembled,

including visitors, parents, old boys, and quite a number of

Pressmen. Pennybet arrived, invested with all the sleek majesty that

Sandhurst could give him: and, seeking out Doe and myself, he lent

us the dignity of his presence.

At about half-past-ten Radley came to the nets for a little

practice, and most of us walked up to see what sort of form he was

showing. I was feeling a little shy in my Second Eleven colours and

convinced that all the ladies were asking why my blazer was

different from the others. Pennybet quickly saw that I was sensitive

on this point, and, with his cruel humour, began emphasising the

little difficulty: "Ray, how comes it that your blazer's unlike the

others? It's very noticeable, isn't it?"

"Oh, shut up," urged I, blushing over face and neck and throat.

"All the ladies," continued my torturer, "will notice it and pity

you, saying 'Isn't he lovely?'"

I ignored him and devoted my attention to watching Radley, as he

took his place at the net, where Honion was bowling. It was clear

that he did not underestimate Honion's express deliveries, for he

rolled up his sleeve, displaying a massive forearm that alarmed us

seriously; re-arranged his rubber bat-handle; placed his bat firmly

in the block; and faced Honion.

The silence spoke of the importance of the moment; Lancaster, our

captain, was measuring himself with Radley. He took his long run and

bowled. Radley, with little apparent effort, drove the ball out of

the net-mouth to the far end of the field, and re-commenced

attending to his bat-handle.

"Oh, the full-blooded villain!" exclaimed Penny.

Someone handed Honion another ball, and he bowled. Radley hit it

with great force into the net on the off side. Our spirits sank.

Honion was good; he was great; but he was not great enough for

Radley.

The third ball Radley tapped straight to where I was standing, and I

fielded it.

"Bowl," said he.

I did not wish to do so, but it was impossible to disobey. And, as I

prepared to bowl, the silence became eloquent again. The new man,

the eleventh-hour bowler, was measuring himself with Radley. I

realised that my first ball teased him. My second laid his leg-stump

on the ground. A yell of joy showed to what a height the spirits of

the crowd had risen. But mine sank in proportion: I should never

bowl him out twice in one day....

The bell rang, and the field was cleared.

All over the ground there was an anticipatory silence, which made

the striking of the school-clock sound wonderfully loud. Then an

ovation greeted Lancaster, as he led his classic team on to the

ground.

The Masters had won the toss, and the two, who were to open the

batting, left the pavilion amid applause, and assumed their places

at the wicket. Lancaster placed his field, bowled a lightning ball,

and splintered an old Oxonian's middle stump.

Here was excitement! Delirious boys prophesied that eight years'

defeats would be wiped off the slate by the school's dismissing the

Masters for a handful of runs, scoring a great score, and then

dismissing them again, so as to win an innings victory. But stay!

Who is this coming in first-wicket-down? Not Radley? Yes, by

heaven, it is! He has come to see that no rot sets in. Now, Honion,

you may well spit on your hands. A laugh trembles its way round the

spectators, as Lancaster places his men in the deep field. He is

ready to be knocked about.

The first over closes for ten, all off Radley's bat, two fours and a

two. The new bowler, White, deals in slows, and the scoring partakes

of the nature of the bowling. But the outstanding fact of that over

is this: that Radley hit the last ball with terrific force along the

ground, and it was so brilliantly fielded and thrown in that it

scattered the stumps before Radley, who had started to run, could

reach the crease. Suddenly, crisply, half a thousand mouths snapped

out the query: "How's that!"

"_Out._"

With great good-humour Radley continued his run a little way, but in

the direction of the pavilion. Boys stood up and clapped

frantically, not a few seizing their neighbours and pummelling them

with clenched fists on the back. Pennybet, sitting beside Doe, shook

hands with him and with a couple of undemonstrative old gentlemen,

whom he had never seen before. They seemed a little overawed, as he

wrung their hands.

By one o'clock the Masters were out, having compiled the diminutive

score of 99. Not once had they been asked to face my bowling. Honion

and White shared the wickets between them.

Now the only question was: would the school be able to beat them by

an innings, and so crown their glorious season? They had better, for

the onlookers would be content with nothing less.

Everyone adjourned for lunch. The noise in the dining halls, which

the masters made no attempt to check, was tremendous, since all were

offering their forecasts of the result. But this fact was

universally accepted: the School Eleven would play carefully till

they had scored a hundred runs and so passed the Masters' total,

after which they would adopt forcing tactics and lift the score over

300. Then they would declare, and bowl the Masters out for a price

under the spare 200 runs. Thus the innings victory would be

achieved.

§4

The most effective, the most spectacular, and probably the worst

innings of the School Eleven was that played by Moles White. He

dragged his elephantine form to the wicket, and, looking round with

his genial smile, prepared to enjoy the Masters' bowling. Again and

again he lifted the ball high into the air and grinned as master

after master dropped the catches. It was a method that could only

have been successful in such a match as this, where the field had

been taken by a team like the Masters, whose "tail" was quite out of

practice and rather stiff in the joints.

Every vigorous hit of White's, even if it soared skyward, was

cheered with loud cries of "Good old Moles!" Every time his

unpardonable catches were dropped, the acclamations were lost in

laughter. And when with a splendid stroke he lifted the score over

the Masters' total and into three figures, White enjoyed the triumph

of his school career.

By this time there was collected behind the railings that surround

Kensingtowe a fine crowd of carters and cabmen, who had "woahed"

their horses and were standing on their boxes, enjoying an excellent

view. They had no idea what the match was, or who were winning, but

every time they heard the boys begin to cheer, they waved their

hats, brandished their whips, and cheered and whistled as well. The

excellent fellows only knew that the great crowd of young gents was

happy, and were benignantly pleased to share their happiness.

White made his fifty and was bowled in attempting the most

abominable of blind-swipes. He returned towards the pavilion, so far

forgetting himself in his pleasure as to swing about his bat like a

tennis-racket. What thunderous applause he received! It was his last

term, and his last match. And I am glad that the final picture,

which our memory preserves of White alive, shows us the sterling oaf

departing after a glorious innings, surrounded by uproarious

school-fellows, and smiling as only the righteous can. Grand old

boy, may we meet many more like you!

By a quarter to five the School total had reached the astonishing

figure of 350. To this I had contributed 4, with which I was very

satisfied, as it was four more than I expected. Lancaster declared,

and the school by its applause endorsed the decision.

Now, how did the position stand? Stumps were to be drawn at 7.30. To

save the innings defeat the Masters must score over 250 in two hours

and a half. An impossible achievement--a hundred to one on an

innings defeat! But would they all be bowled out in the little time

left? With luck, and Honion in form, yes. And luck was with us, and

Honion in great form this afternoon. Oh, a thousand to one on an

innings defeat!

§5

The School took the field without unnecessary delay, and Radley

opened the Masters' innings. They were going to make a fight of it,

then. But the School had set its heart on the innings victory, and

the team had the moral strength derived from the concentrated

determination of six hundred boys. What had the Masters to oppose

this? Nothing save Radley and a handful of tarnished Blues.

It is stated that the third innings of the day opened like this:

Honion started on a longer run than usual, as if to terrify this

Radley fellow. The latter, so an enormous number declared, though I

contend they were mistaken, started to run at the same time as the

bowler, and, meeting the ball at full-pitch, smote it for six. The

jubilant expectations of the crowd, always as sensitive as the Stock

Exchange, fluctuated. The second ball was square-cut more quietly

for four. The third was driven high over the bowler's head and

travelled to the boundary-rope. Honion placed a man at the spot

where the ball passed the rope, and sent down a similar delivery.

Radley pulled it, as a great laugh went up, to the very spot from

which the fieldsman had been removed. Eighteen in four balls! The

spirits of the crowd drooped.

Penny, at his place with Doe, began to sulk, saying he was sick of

it all, and wished he hadn't come.

"Oh, rot," said Doe, "they haven't put our Rupert, the dark horse,

on yet. I'm afraid all that's rotten in me is wanting him to be a

failure. I can't help it, and I'm _trying_ to hope he'll come off.

If he does, I'll bellow! Over. White's going to bowl now."

The ground apparently favoured the slow bowler, for the first wicket

fell to White's second ball. But the victim, sad to tell, was not

Radley.

Hush--oh, hush. The head master was coming out to partner Radley!

And, considering the silence of respect with which he was greeted, I

think Salome scarcely behaved becomingly. He hit an undignified

boundary for four.

"Ee, bless me, my man!" whispered the wits.

But Salome, ignorant of this mild flippancy, actually undertook to

run a vulgar five for an overthrow: and by like methods succeeded in

amassing a score of runs in a dozen minutes.

Meanwhile, Radley, who from the beginning had taken his life in his

hands, was flogging the bowling. He and Salome quickly added fifty

to the Masters' total.

But Salome's bright young life was destined to be curtailed. A

straight, swift ball from Honion he stopped with his instep, and

promptly obeyed two laws which operate in such circumstances: the

one compelling him to execute a pleasing dance and rub the injured

bone; and the other involving his return to the pavilion (l.b.w.) in

favour of the succeeding batsman.

At this interesting development Penny bobbed up and down in his seat

with glee. "Ee, bless me! Ee, hang me! Ee, curse me!" he chirruped.

"He's bust the bone. He'll never walk again. Probably mortification

will set in, and he'll have his foot off. Next man in, please. Oh, I

never enjoyed anything so much in my life."

The following two wickets were shared by Honion and White, and the

score stood at 90 for four, when the school chaplain approached the

wicket. This reverend gentleman walked to his place with zealous

rapidity, and proceeded to propagate the gospel with some excellent

hits to leg. Three such yielded him nine runs, and at the end of the

over he found himself facing Honion's bowling. The temporary dismay

of the crowd disappeared. Honion, it was conjectured, would soon

send the parson indoors to evensong. But the conjecture was faulty.

Honion instead was sent for a two, a boundary, and a single.

"Curse me!" grumbled Penny. "It's not in the best taste for the

learned divine to play like any godless layman. Has he nothing

better to do? Are there no souls to save?"

"No, but there's a match to save," suggested Doe.

There was perhaps some justification for Penny's indignation, when

this indecent ecclesiastic scored two fours in succession, and

by his beaming face and intermittent giggle showed that he was

feeling a very carnal satisfaction in sending ten members of his

congregation, one after another, in search of the ball. Ultimately

he was caught low down in the slips, having compiled an excellent

thirty; and he walked off, hardly concealing a smile.

As he ran up the steps of the pavilion, Upton came down, drawing on

his gloves and ready to prove that Erasmus could exhibit very

creditable pedagogues, as well as Bramhall. This slender,

grey-haired master with the ruddy countenance was much favoured by

the ladies. He looked a young and blooming veteran. The boys of

Erasmus gave him a cheer (for he was a good man) and prayed that he

might not survive the first ball. He did, however, and held his end

up in dogged fashion, leaving Radley to develop the score, and only

occasionally taking a modest four for himself.

It was about this time that Radley got under a ball and sent a

chance whizzing towards me. It flew high, and I shot up my left hand

for it. The ball hit me right in the centre of the palm with such

force that it stung most painfully, and I had not the least

hesitation in dropping it. There were groans of disappointment from

the males, execrations from Penny, and murmurs of sympathy and love

from the female portion of the crowd. But my sensations were again

the opposite to the crowd's. The pain in my hand was exactly the

same as when Radley caned me years before on the left hand: and I

was reminded of the scene. "Put up your left hand," he had said

sarcastically. "You'll need the other for writing your lines." Now I

had accidentally put up my left. It was surely because I should need

the other for bowling him out. Such strange alleys do my thoughts

run along when I am woolgathering in the field.

It must be admitted that Honion was by this time a failure. Radley

was doing what he liked with the bowling. By six-thirty the score

stood at 180, and the Masters only required 70 to save them from the

innings defeat. There was an hour before them, and they had five

wickets in hand. But the light was not so good. We might do it yet.

Thirty minutes of that last hour passed, and in them forty runs were

scored at a cost of three wickets. So there was half an hour left to

play, two wickets in hand, and thirty runs to get.

The ninth man failed at a quarter past seven, leaving the score at

225. It rested, then, with Radley and the last man to make 25 in

fifteen minutes and a bad light.

The schoolboy crowd was suffering; and, when Radley smote Honion for

a six, the suffering became agony. Some drastic step must be taken.

Suddenly a shrill-voiced boy sang out:

"Put Ray on. Give Ray a chance."

The crowd took it up and roared out its instructions to put Ray on.

Bad form, I grant you, but then they scarcely knew what they were

doing, for they were in an ecstasy of suspense and excitement. The

cry became formidable. "Put Ray on." My face felt as if it had been

scorched at the fire. One boy roared out: "Hoo-_Ray_, hoo-_Ray_,

hoo-blooming-_Ray_!"

The crowd laughed, and, while many inquired of one another: "What

did he say? Do tell me," the majority adopted the cry as a slogan.

"Hoo-_Ray_, hoo-_Ray_, hoo-blooming-_Ray_!"

Our captain deferred to the voice of public opinion.

"Take next over this end, Ray," he said.

The permission was belated enough. When amid terrific applause I

faced Radley, there were only fourteen runs to be made and ten

minutes to play.

But, then, I had only one wicket to take. The pulsations of my heart

were rapid--but dull, deliberate, and heavy as a strong man's fist.

I felt as though I had not eaten anything for weeks, nor was ever

likely to eat again. Honion shook his head; he saw that I was

trembling. Radley smiled encouragingly. White said: "For God's sake,

Ray, pull it off." And I murmured: "Right. I'll try." I was

surprised at the way my voice shook.

I took a quiet run (though my feet sounded noisily on the turf,

owing to the breathless silence) and bowled.

"Wide!"

The crowd laughed, but it was the laugh of despair. My second ball

Radley hit for four. My third followed it to the boundary.

"This'll be Ray's last over," said the witty critics. It was. There

were only five more runs to be made. The ladies, preparing for

departure, drew on their gloves. Sedate gentlemen, who had removed

top-hats from perspiring brows, brushed the silk with their sleeves.

Within a few minutes the innings victory would be won or lost.

Despair cured me of nerves. I bowled my fourth ball without any

excitement. Radley fumbled and missed it. He smiled grimly, twisted

his bat round, adjusted the handle, and resumed his position at the

block.

Murmurs of "Well bowled" reached me: and so silent was the crowd and

so still the evening, that I heard a voice saying to someone: "That

was a good ball, wasn't it? Absolutely beat him. In a light like

this--"

Now I was trembling, if you like. But it was not nerves. It was

confidence that the supreme moment of my schooldays was upon me. I

picked up the ball, muttering repeatedly but unconsciously: "O God,

make me do it." I turned and faced Radley. As I took my short run, I

felt perfectly certain that I should bowl him. And the next thing I

remember was seeing my master's leg-bail fall to the ground.

All together, none before and none after the other, every male in

the crowd bellowed forth the accumulated excitement of the day:

"OUT!"

§6

Not for half an hour that evening did the cheering cease or the mass

of boys begin to disperse. Even then there were little outbreaks of

fresh cheering coming from separate groups. A line of day-boys, who

had linked arms as, homeward bound, they left the field, droned

merrily:

"Now the day is over,

Night is drawing nigh,

Shadows of the evening

Steal across the sky."

And among the dissolving cheers from the distance could occasionally

be heard the refrain of "Hoo-_Ray_, hoo-_Ray_, hoo-blooming-_Ray_!"

CHAPTER XII

CASTLES AND BRICK-DUST

§1

It was on the day when those two pistol shots were fired at an

Austrian Archduke in the streets of Serajevo that the Masters' match

was played out at Kensingtowe. By the early evening the

reverberation of the revolver reports had been felt like an

earthquake-shock in all the capitals of Europe; and in a failing

light the last wicket had fallen at Kensingtowe. So it happened

that, while the Emperors of Central Europe were whispering that the

Day had come and the slaughter of the youth of Christendom might

begin, there was a gathering in Radley's room of those insignificant

people whose little doings you have watched at Kensingtowe. They

were assembled to drink tea and discuss the match. There were Radley

as host; Pennybet, to represent the Old Boys; Doe and I, in fine

fettle for the School; and Dr. Chappy, who, having sworn that he was

a busy man and couldn't spare the time, sat spilling cigar-ash in

the best armchair, and looked like remaining for the rest of the

evening.

"Stop quarrelling about the match," said Radley, as he stood with

his back to the mantelpiece, "and listen to me. It's a great day,

this--a day of triumph. Ray has won the innings victory for the

School, and Doe--"

Doe pricked up his ears.

"It's just out--Doe has won the Horace Prize."

At this news there were great congratulations of the poet, who went

red with pleasure.

"When you've all finished," said Radley, "I'll read the Prize Poem."

So Radley began faithfully from a manuscript:

"Horace, Odes I, 9. _Vides ut Alta Stet._

"White is the mountain, fleeced in snows,

And the pale trees depress their weighted boughs--"

"Oh, spare us!" interrupted Chappy.

"Not a bit," said Radley. "Hark to this:

"Bring out the mellow wine, the best,

The sweet convivial wine, and test

Its four-year-old maturity:

To Jove commit the rest,

Nor question his divine intents

For, when he stays the battling elements,

The wind shall brood o'er prostrate seas

And fail to move the ash's crest

Or stir the stilly cypress trees.

Be no forecaster of the dawn;

Deem it an asset, and be gay--

Come, merge to-morrow's misty morn

In the resplendence of to-day.

"Youth is the day the field to scour,

The time of conquests won,

The pause, wherein to hark at trysting hour

To the whispered word

That is gently heard

In the wake of the passing sun--"

"What's it all about?" grumbled Chappy. "And I'm sure 'morn' doesn't

rhyme with 'dawn.'" at which Doe went white with pain, and numbered

the doctor among the Philistines.

"It's a very distinguished attempt to catch the spirit of Horace's

fine ode," answered Radley, and Doe turned red again with pleasure,

forgiving Radley all the unkindness he had ever perpetrated, and

enrolling him among the Elect.

Now Pennybet liked to be the centre of attraction at friendly little

gatherings like this, and had little inclination to sit and listen

to people praising those who recently had been nothing but his

satellites. So he lit a cigarette and said:

"It's entirely the result of my training that these young people

have turned out so well."

"Pennybet," explained Radley, "you're a purblind egotist and will

come to a bad end."

"Oh, I don't think so, sir," said Penny, crossing his legs that he

might the more comfortably discuss his end with Radley. "I've always

managed to do what I've wanted and to come out of it all right."

"Oh, you have, have you?" sneered Chappy.

"Always," answered Penny, unabashed. "It's a favourite saying of my

mother's that 'adverse conditions will never conquer her wilful

son.'"

"Good God!" cried the doctor, rightly appalled.

"Yes," continued the speaker, delighted to tease the doctor, "for

instance, I made up my mind all the time I was here to stick in a

low form. It was an easier life, and fun to boss kids like Edgar Doe

and Rupert Ray. And I pulled all the strings of the famous Bramhall

Riot, as Ray knows. And I just did sufficient work to pass into

Sandhurst. And I shall be just satisfactory enough to get my

commission. Then I shall do all in my power to provoke a European

War, so that there will be a good chance of promotion--"

"There's a type of man," interrupted Radley, "who'd start a prairie

fire, if it were the only way to light his pipe."

"Exactly. And I am he."

"Good God!" repeated Chappy.

"And, after peace is declared, I shall settle down to a comfortable

life at the club."

"It's a relief," smiled Radley, "that you won't lead a revolution

and usurp the throne."

"Too much trouble. I may go into Parliament, which is a comfortable

job. On the Tory side, of course, because there you don't have to

think."

"You've about fifty years of life," suggested Radley. "And don't you

want to do anything constructive in that time?"

"Not in these trousers! I know that, if I were sincere and

constructive in my politics, I should be a Socialist. It stands to

reason that it can't be right for all the wealth to be in the

pockets of the few, and for there to be a distinct and cocky

governing class. But, as I want to amass wealth and enjoy the

position of the ruling class, I shall be careful not to think out my

politics, lest I develop a pernicious Socialism."

"Oh, Lord!" groaned the doctor.

"I think _I_'m a Socialist," suddenly put in Doe, and Chappy turned

to him, dumbfounded to witness the eruption of a second youth.

"I've long thought that, when I find my feet in politics, I shall be

in the Socialist camp. They may be visionary, but they are

idealists. And I think it's up to us public-schoolboys to lead the

great mass of uneducated people, who can't articulate their needs.

I'd love to be their leader."

"What you're going to be," said Radley, "is an intellectual

rebel. When you go up to Oxford in a year or so, you'll pose

as most painfully intellectual. You'll be a Socialist in

Politics, a Futurist in Art, and a Modernist or Ultramontane in

Religion--anything that's a rebellion against the established order.

At all costs let us be original and outrageous."

"Hear, hear," whispered Penny.

"Ray has been the strong, silent man so far," said Radley. "Let's

hear his Castle in the Air."

"For God's sake--" began Chappy.

"Speech! Speech!" demanded Pennybet.

"Oh, I don't know," demurred I. "I've not many ideas. I generally

think I'd like to be a country squire, very popular among the

tenants, who'd have my photo on their dressers. And I'd send them

all hares and pheasants at Christmas and be interested in their

drains--"

I was elaborating this picture, when Penny, feeling that he had made

his speech and was not particularly interested in anyone else's,

glanced at a gold wrist-watch, and decided that it was time for him

to go. He made a peculiarly effective exit, his hat tilted at what

he called a "damn-your-eyes" angle. Never again did Doe or I see

him, though we heard of his doings. God speed to him, our cocksure

Pennybet. Let us always think the best of him.

No sooner had the door clicked than Chappy exploded.

"That high youth ought to have his trousers taken down and be

birched. What are we coming to, when boys like him lecture their

elders on how to run the world?"

"That question," Radley retorted, "Adam probably asked Eve, when

Cain and Abel decided to be Socialists."

"I tell you, these self-opinionated boys want whipping, and so do

you, Master Doe, with your damned Fabianism."

"Oh, come, come," objected Radley. "I like them to be gloriously

self-confident. Young blood is heady stuff. And there'd be

something wrong, if a body full of young blood didn't have a head

full of glittering illusions."

"Rot!" proclaimed Chappy.

"I like them to be Socialists and Futurists and everything. If

_they_ don't want to put the world to rights, who will?"

"Damned rot!"

"It's nothing of the sort," rejoined Radley, getting annoyed. "They

ought to break out at this time. You can't bind up a bud to prevent

it bursting into flower."

"If I'd children who burst like that, I'd bind them for you!"

"No, you wouldn't," contradicted Radley, softening again. "You'd

expect them to be intolerant of you as old fashioned. You'd withdraw

behind your cigar-smoke and your old-fashioned ideas, and leave

_them_ to put the world to rights. After all, it's their world."

§2

Now, though you may think this a very uninteresting chapter--a mere

dialogue over the tea-cups, I take leave to present it to you as

quite the most dramatic and most central of our humble tale. The

events that lend it this distinguished character were happening

hundreds of miles from Radley's room, in places where more powerful

people than Penny or Doe or I were building Castles in the Air. An

Emperor was dreaming of a towering, feudal Castle, broad-based upon

a conquered Europe and a servile East. Nay, more, he had finished

with dreaming. All the materials of this master-mason were ready to

the last stone. And, if the two pistol-shots meant anything, they

meant that the Emperor had begun to build.

And, since building was the order of the day, there were wise men in

the councils of the Free Nations who saw that they must destroy the

Emperor's handiwork and build instead a Castle of their own, where

Liberty, International Honour, and many other lovely things might

find a home. So for all of us self-opinionated boys, it was a matter

of hours this summer evening before we should be told to tumble our

petty Castles down, and shape from their ruins a brick or two for

the Castle of the Free Peoples. Well, we tumbled them down. And the

rest of this story, I think, is the story of the bricks that were

made from their dust.

§3

Doe and I left Radley and the doctor to their dispute, and retired

to our study. It was then that Doe began to blush and say:

"Funny the subject of our ambitions cropped up. Only a few days ago

I tried to write a poem about it."

I pleaded for permission to read it.

"You can, if you like," he said, getting very crimson. With

trembling hands he extracted a notebook from his pocket and

indicated the poem to me. From that moment I saw that he was waiting

in an agony of suspense for my approval.

I took it to the window, and, by the half-light of evening, read:

If God were pleased to satisfy

My every whim,

I'd tell you just the little things

I'd ask of Him:

A little love--a little love, and that comes first of all,

And then a chance, and more than one, to raise up them that fall;

Enough, not overmuch, to spend;

And discourse that would charm me

With one familiar friend;

A little music, and, perhaps, a song or two to sing;

And I would ask of God above to grant one other thing:

Before old Death can grimly smile

And take me unawares,

A little time to rest awhile,

To think, and say my prayers.

"Gad!" I said. "You're a poet."

I liked the little trifle, not least because I suspected that the

"one familiar friend" was myself. Everyone likes to be mentioned in

a poem.

Doe beamed with pleasure that I had not spoken harshly of his

off-spring.

"Glad you like it," he said.

"There's this," I suggested, "you talk about only wanting 'these

little things' out of life. But it seems to me that you want quite a

lot."

"A lot! By Jove, Ray," cried Doe excitedly, "it's only when I'm in

my unworldly moods that I want so little as that. In my worse

moments--that's nine-tenths of the day--I want yards more: Fame and

Flattery and Power."

"Funny. Once, outside the baths, I had a sort of longing to--"

"Ray, I only tell _you_ these things," interrupted Doe, now worked

up, "but often I feel I've something in me that must come

out--something strong--something forceful."

"I don't think I ever felt quite like that," said I, ruminating.

"But I did once feel outside the baths--"

"The trouble is," Doe carried on, "that this something in me isn't

pure. It's mixed up with the desire for glory. When I told Radley

I'd like to be a leader of the people, I knew that one-third was a

real desire for their good, and two-thirds a desire for my own

glory."

"Yes, but I was going to tell you that once--"

"And I wish it were a pure force. I'd love to pursue an Ideal for

its own sake, and without any thought for my own glory. I wonder if

I shall ever do a really perfect thing."

"I was going to tell you," I persisted; and, though I knew he

measured my temperament as far inferior to Edgar Doe's artistic

soul, and would rather have continued his own revelations, yet must

I interrupt by telling him of my one moment of aspiration and

yearning. Perhaps, I, too, wanted to pour out my mind's little

adventures. We're all the same, and like a heart-to-heart talk, so

long as it is about ourselves.

I told him, accordingly, of that strange evening outside the baths,

when I had felt so overpowering an aspiration towards a vague

ideal--an ideal that could not be grasped or seen, but was somehow

both great and good.

§4

The last evening of that summer term there was a noisy breaking-up

banquet at Bramhall House. And in the morning I went to Radley's

room to say a separate good-bye. I was exultant. Next term seemed

worlds away: and, meanwhile, eight sunny weeks of holiday stretched

before me. My mother and I were off for Switzerland, to whose white

heights and blue Genevan lake she loved to take me, for it was my

birthplace, and, in her fond way, she would call me her "mountain

boy," and tell an old story of a Colonel who had gazed into his

grandson's eyes, and said: "_Il a dans les yeux un coin du lac._" I

was dreaming, then, of the Swiss mountain air, and of twin white

sails on a lovely lake; and I was visualising, let me admit it, a

new well-tailored suit, grey spats, socks of a mauve variety, and

other holiday eruptions. So there was no space in my parochial mind

for international issues and rumours of wars. Rather I was

ridiculously flushed and shining, as I came upon Radley and wished

him a happy holiday.

Radley seemed strained, as though he had something ominous to break,

and said with a dull and meaning laugh: "I'm sure I hope you have

one too."

Observing that he was in one of his harder moods, I at once became

awkwardly dumb; and there was a difficult silence, till he asked:

"Have you heard about Herr Reinhardt?"

"Mr. Cæsar? No, sir."

"Well, he left to-day for Germany."

"What on earth for?"

"Why, to shoulder a rifle, of course, and fight in the German ranks.

Don't you know Germany is mobilising and will be at war with France

in about thirty hours?"

"Oh, I read something about it. But what fun!"

Radley looked irritated. In trying to break some strange news he had

walked up a blind alley and been met by my blank wall of density. So

he took another path.

"Pennybet is in luck, according to his ideas. All Europe plays into

his hands. He's got the war he wanted to give him rapid promotion."

"Why, sir, how will Germany affect him?"

"Only in this way," Radley announced, desperately trying to get

through my blank wall by exploding a surprise, "that England will be

at war with Germany in about three days."

"Oh, what fun! We'll give 'em no end of a thrashing. I hate

Germans. Excepting Herr Reinhardt. I hope _he_ has a decent time."

"And White and Lancaster, and all who leave this term, and perhaps

even--perhaps others will get commissions at once."

"Why, sir? They're not going to Sandhurst."

"No," sighed Radley, "but they give commissions to all old

public-schoolboys, if there's a big war. White and Lancaster will be

in the fight before many months."

"Lucky beggars!"

It was this fatuous remark which showed Radley that I had no idea of

my own relation to the coming conflict. So he forbore to spring upon

me the greatest surprise of all. He just said with a sadness and a

strange emphasis:

"Well, good-bye, _and the best of luck_. Make the most of your

holiday. There are great times in front of you."

All the while he said it, he held my hand in a demonstrative way,

very unlike the normal Radley. Then he dropped it abruptly and

turned away. And I went exuberantly out--so exuberantly that I left

my hat upon his table, and was obliged to hasten back for it. When I

entered the room again, he was staring out of the window over the

empty cricket fields. Though he heard me come, he never once turned

round, as I picked up my hat and went out through the door.

And because of that I dared to wonder whether his grey eyes, where

the gentleness lay, were not inquiring of the deserted fields: "Have

I allowed myself to grow too fond?" He seemed as if braced for

suffering.

Farewell, Radley, farewell. After all, does it matter to a strong

swimmer if the wave beats against him?

_Now Thames is long and winds its changing way

Through wooded reach to dusky ports and gray,

Till, wearily, it strikes the Flats of Leigh,

An old life, tidal with Eternity.

But Fal is short, full, deep, and very wide,

Nor old, nor sleepy, when it meets the tide;

Through hills and groves where birds and branches sing

It runs its course of sunny wandering,

And passes, careless that it soon shall be

Lost in the old, gray mists that hide the sea.

Ah, they were good, those up-stream reaches when

Ourselves were young and dreamed of being men,

But Fal! the tide had touched us even then!

One tribal God, we bow to, thou and we,

And praise Him, Who ordained our lives should be

So early tidal with Eternity._

BOOK II

AND THE REST--WAR

_Part I: "Rangoon" Nights_

CHAPTER I

THE ETERNAL WATERWAY

§1

The most clearly marked moment of my life was when I passed the fat

policeman who was standing just inside the great gateway of

Devonport Dockyard. I was to embark that morning on a troopship

bound for the Dardanelles. As I stepped out of the public

thoroughfare, and walking through the gate, saw the fat policeman. I

passed out of one period of my life and entered upon another.

The first period that remained outside the tall walls of the

dockyard was made up of chapters of boyhood and schooldays; and a

gallant last chapter of playing at soldiers. Ah! this last

chapter--it had tennis and theatres and girls and kisses: a great

patch of life! And I left it all outside the docks.

The second period, on to which I now abruptly set foot, was to be

intense, highly-coloured, and scented; a rush of rapidly moving

pictures of the blue waters of the Mediterranean, the bleak hills of

Mudros, and the exploding shells on the peninsula of Gallipoli.

The fat policeman had a revolver slung over his shoulder, and his

businesslike weapon expressed better than anything else that England

was at war and taking no risks. He suitably challenged me:

"Your authority to go through, sir?" demanded he.

"That's where I've got you by the winter garments," said I vulgarly;

and, diving my hand into my pocket, I drew out my Embarkation

Orders. They were heavily marked in red "SECRET," but I judged the

policeman to be "in the know," and showed them to him. Properly

impressed with the historic document, he turned to a fair-haired

young officer who was with me, and asked:

"You the same, sir?"

"Surely," answered my companion, which was a new way he had acquired

of saying "yes."

"Right y'are, sir," said the policeman, and we crossed the line.

My fair-haired companion was, of course, Second Lieutenant Edgar

Gray Doe; and it was in keeping with the destiny that entwined our

lives that we should pass the fat policeman together. And now I had

better tell you how it happened.

§2

On August 3, 1914, eleven months before my solemn admission into

Devonport Dockyard, I was a young schoolboy on my holidays, playing

tennis in a set of mixed doubles. About five o'clock a paper-boy

entered the tennis-club grounds with the _Evening News_. My male

opponent, although he was serving, stopped his game for a minute and

bought a paper.

"Hang the paper!" called I, indifferent to the fact that the Old

World was falling about our ears and England's last day of peace was

going down with the afternoon sun. "Your service. Love--fifteen."

"By Jove," he cried, after scanning the paper, "we're in!"

"What do you mean," cried the girls, "have the Germans declared war

on us?"

"No. But we've sent an ultimatum to Germany which expires at twelve

to-night. That means Britain will be in a state of war with Germany

as from midnight." The hand that held the paper trembled with

excitement.

"How frightfully thrilling!" said one girl.

"How awful!" whispered the other.

"How ripping!" corrected I. "Crash on with the game. Your service.

Love--fifteen."

Five days later it was decided that I should not return to school,

but should go at once into the army. So it was that I never finished

up in the correct style at Kensingtowe with an emotional last

chapel, endless good wishes and a lump in my throat. I just didn't

go back.

Instead, an influential friend, who knew the old Colonel of the 2nd

Tenth East Cheshires, a territorial battalion of my grandfather's

regiment, secured for me and, at my request, for Doe commissions in

that unit. His Majesty the King (whom, and whose dominions, might

God preserve in this grand moment of peril) had, it seemed, great

faith in the loyalty and gallantry of "Our trusty and well-beloved

Rupert Ray," as also of "Our trusty and well-beloved Edgar Gray

Doe," and was pleased to accept our swords in the defence of his

realm.

So one day we two trusty and well-beloved subjects, flushed, very

nervous, and clad in the most expensive khaki uniforms that London

could provide, took train for the North to interview the Colonel of

the 2nd Tenth. He was sitting at a littered writing-table, when we

were shown in by a smart orderly. We saw a plump old territorial

Colonel, grey-haired, grey-moustached, and kindly in face. His khaki

jacket was brightened by the two South African medal ribbons; and we

were so sadly fresh to things military as to wonder whether either

was the V.C. We saluted with great smartness, and hoped we had made

the movement correctly: for really, we knew very little about it. I

wasn't sure whether we ought to salute indoors; and Doe, having

politely bared his fair head on entering the office, saluted without

a cap. I blushed at my bad manners and surreptitiously removed mine.

Not knowing what to do with my hands, I put them in my pockets. I

knew that, if something didn't happen quickly, I should start

giggling. Here in the presence of our new commanding officer I felt

as I used to when I stood before the head master.

"Sit down," beamed the C.O.

We sat down, crossed our legs, and tried to appear at our ease, and

languid; as became officers.

"How old are you?" the Colonel asked Doe.

Doe hesitated, wondering whether to perjure himself and say

"Twenty."

"Eighteen, sir," he admitted, obviously ashamed.

"And you, Ray?"

"Eighteen, sir," said I, feeling Doe's companion in guilt.

"Splendid, perfectly splendid!" replied the Colonel. "Eighteen, by

Jove! You've timed your lives wonderfully, my boys. To be eighteen

in 1914 is to be the best thing in England. England's wealth used to

consist in other things. Nowadays you boys are the richest thing

she's got. She's solvent with you, and bankrupt without you.

Eighteen, confound it! It's a virtue to be your age, just as it's a

crime to be mine. Now, look here"--the Colonel drew up his chair, as

if he were going to get to business--"look here. Eighteen years ago

you were born for this day. Through the last eighteen years you've

been educated for it. Your birth and breeding were given you that

you might officer England's youth in this hour. And now you enter

upon your inheritance. Just as this is _the_ day in the history of

the world so yours is _the_ generation. No other generation has been

called to such grand things, and to such crowded, glorious living.

Any other generation at your age would be footling around, living a

shallow existence in the valleys, or just beginning to climb a

slope to higher things. But you"--here the Colonel tapped the

writing-table with his forefinger--"you, just because you've timed

your lives aright, are going to be transferred straight to the

mountain-tops. Well, I'm damned. Eighteen!"

I remember how his enthusiasm radiated from him and kindled a

responsive excitement in me. I had entered his room a silly boy with

no nobler thought than a thrill in the new adventure on which I had

so suddenly embarked. But, as this fatherly old poet, touched by

England's need and by the sight of two boys entering his room, so

fresh and strong and ready for anything, broke into eloquence, I saw

dimly the great ideas he was striving to express. I felt the

brilliance of being alive in this big moment; the pride of youth and

strength. I felt Aspiration surging in me and speeding up the action

of my heart. I think I half hoped it would be my high lot to die on

the battlefield. It was just the same glowing sensation that

pervaded me one strange evening when, standing outside the baths at

Kensingtowe, I first awoke to the joy of conscious life.

"D'you see what I'm driving at?" asked the old Colonel.

"Rather!" answered Doe, with eagerness. Turning towards him as he

spoke, I saw by the shining in his brown eyes that the poet in him

had answered to the call of the old officer's words. His aspiration

as well as mine was inflamed. Doe was feeling great. He was

picturing himself, no doubt, leading a forlorn hope into triumph, or

fighting a rearguard action and saving the British line. The heroic

creature was going to be equal to the great moment and save England

dramatically.

Pleased with Doe's ready understanding--my friend always captivated

people in the first few minutes--our C.O. warmed still more to his

subject. Having put his hands in his pockets and leant back in his

chair to survey us the better, he continued:

"What I mean is--had you been eighteen a generation earlier, the

British Empire could have treated you as very insignificant fry,

whereas to-day she is obliged to come to you boys and say 'You take

top place in my aristocracy. You're on top because I must place the

whole weight of everything I have upon your shoulders. You're on top

because you are the Capitalists, possessing an enormous capital of

youth and strength and boldness and endurance. You must give it all

to me--to gamble with--for my life. I've nothing to give you in

return, except suffering and--'"

The Colonel paused, feeling he had said enough--or too much. We made

no murmur of agreement. It would have seemed like applauding in

church. Then he proceeded:

"Well, you're coming to my battalion, aren't you?"

"Yes, rather, sir," said Doe.

"Right. You're just the sort of boys that I want. If you're young

and bold, your men will follow you anywhere. In this fight it's

going to be better to be a young officer, followed and loved because

of his youth, than to be an old one, followed and trusted because of

his knowledge. Dammit! I wish I could make you see it. But, for

God's sake, be enthusiastic. Be enthusiastic over the great crisis,

over the responsibility, over your amazingly high calling."

He stopped, and began playing with a pencil; and it was some while

before he added, speaking uncomfortably and keeping his eyes upon

the pencil:

"Take a pride in your bodies, and hold them in condition. You'll

want 'em. There are more ways than one of getting them tainted in

the life of temptations you're going to face. I expect you--you

grasp my meaning.... But, if only you'll light up your enthusiasm,

everything else will be all right."

He raised his eyes and looked at us again, saying:

"Well, good-bye for the present."

We shook hands, saluted, and went out. And, as I shut the door, I

heard the old enthusiast call out to someone who must have been in

an inner room: "I've two gems of boys there--straight from school.

Bless my soul, England'll win through."

§3

But, lack-a-day, here's the trouble with me. My moments of

exaltation have always been fleeting. Just as in the old school-days

I would leave Radley's room, brimful of lofty resolutions, and fall

away almost immediately into littleness again, so now I soon allowed

the lamp of enthusiasm, lit by the Colonel, to grow very dim.

It was ridicule of the fine old visionary that destroyed his power.

"Hallo, here come two more of the Colonel's blue-eyed boys," laughed

the officers of our new battalion the first time we came into their

view. And "The old man's mounted his hobby again," said they, after

any lecture in which he alluded to Youth and Enthusiasm.

Yet the Colonel was right, and the scoffers wrong. The Colonel was a

poet who could listen and hear how the heart of the world was

beating; the scoffers were prosaic cattle who scarcely knew that the

world had a heart at all. He turned us, if only for a moment, into

young knights of high ideals, while they made us sorry, conceited

young knaves.

You shall know what knaves we were.

So far from being enthusiastic over parades and field days, we found

them most detestably dull and longed for the pleasures that followed

the order to dismiss. And after the Dismiss we were utterly happy.

It was happiness to walk the streets in our new uniforms, and to

take the salutes of the Tommies, the important boy-scouts, and the

military-minded gutter urchins. I longed to go home on leave, so

that in company with my mother I could walk through the world

saluted at every twenty paces, and thus she should see me in all my

glory. And when one day I strolled with her past a Hussar sentry who

brought his sword flashing in the sun to the salute, I felt I had

seldom experienced anything so satisfying.

I was secretly elated, too, in possessing a soldier servant to wait

on me hand and foot--almost to bath me. I spoke with a concealed

relish of "my agents," and loved to draw cheques on Cox and Co. I

looked forward to Sunday Church Parade, for there I could wear my

sword. It was my grandfather's sword, and I'm afraid I thought less

of the romance of bearing it in defence of the Britain that he loved

and the France where he lay buried than of its flashy appearance and

the fine finish it gave to my uniform. I was a strange mixture, for,

when the preacher, looking down the old Gothic arches, said: "This

historic church has often before filled with armed men," I shivered

with the poetry of it; and yet, no sooner had I come out into the

modern sunlight and seen the congregation waiting for the soldiers

to be marched off, than I must needs be occupied again with the

peculiarly dashing figure I was cutting.

Once Doe and I went on a visit to Kensingtowe, partly out of loyalty

to the old school, and partly to display ourselves in our new

greatness. We wore our field-service caps at the jaunty angle of all

right-minded subalterns. Though only unmounted officers, we were

dressed in yellow riding-breeches with white leather strappings.

Fixed to our heels were the spurs that we had long possessed in

secret. They jingled with every step, and the only thing that marred

the music of their tinkle was the anxiety lest some officer of the

2nd Tenth should see us thus arrayed. Doe was in field boots, but

his pleasure in being seen in this cavalry kit was quite spoiled by

his fear of being ridiculed for "swank." Both of us would have liked

to take our batmen with us and to say: "Don't trouble, my man will

do that for you."

We created a gratifying sensation at Kensingtowe. It was

exhilarating to have a friend come up to me and exclaim: "By Jove,

Ray, you're no end of a dog now," and to notice that he didn't heed

my self-depreciatory answer because he was busy looking into every

detail of my uniform. "What devilish fine fellows we are, eh what?"

cried our admirers, and we blushed and said "Oh, shut up." We met

old Dr. Chappy, who looked us up and down, roared with laughter, and

said "Well, I'll be damned!" We were welcomed into Radley's room,

and were boys enough to address him as "sir" as though we were still

his pupils. He examined our appearance like a big brother proud of

two young ones, and said after a silence:

"So this is what it has all come to."

I took a lot of my cronies out to tea in the town, and, as we walked

to the shops, stared down the road to see if any Tommies were coming

who would salute me in front of my guests. Luck was kind to me. For

a large party, marching under an N.C.O., approached us; and the

N.C.O. in a voice like the crack of doom cried "Party--eyes RIGHT!"

Heads and eyes swung towards me, the N.C.O. saluted briskly, and,

when the party had passed us, yelled "Eyes FRONT!" It was one of the

most triumphant moments of my career.

Scarcely, however, had this pride-tickling honour been paid to me

before there happened as distressing a thing as--oh, it was

dreadful! I passed one of your full-blooded regular-army sergeants,

and, since he raised his hand towards his face, I apprehended he was

about to salute me. Promptly I acknowledged the expected salute,

only to discover that the sergeant had raised his hand for no other

purpose than to blow his nose with his naked fingers. Believe me,

even now, when I think of this blunder, I catch my breath with

shame.

What young bucks we were, Doe and I! We bought motor-bicycles and

raced over the country-side, Doe, ever a preacher of Life, calling

out "This is Life, isn't it?" I remember our bowling along a

deserted country road and shouting for a lark: "Sing of joy, sing of

bliss, it was never like this, Yip-i-addy-i-ay!" I remember our

scorching recklessly down white English highways, with a laugh for

every bone-shaking bump, and a heart-thrill for every time we risked

our lives tearing through a narrow passage between two War

Department motor lorries. I see the figure of Doe standing

breathless by his bicycle after a break-neck run, his hair blown

into disorder by the wind, and the white dust of England round his

eyes and on his cheeks, and saying: "My godfathers, this is Life!"

Oh, yes, it was a rosy patch of life and freedom.

§4

But, in our abandonment, we tumbled into more sinister things. It

was disillusionment that bowled us down. The evil that we saw in the

world and the army smashed our allegiance to the old moral codes. We

suddenly lost the old anchors and blew adrift, strange new theories

filling our sails. We ceased to think there was any harm in being

occasionally "blotto" at night, or in employing the picturesque army

word "bloody." Worse than that, we began to believe that vicious

things, which in our boyhood had been very secret sins, were

universally committed and bragged about.

"It's so, Rupert," said Doe, in a corner of the Officers' ante-room

one night before dinner, "I'm an Epicurean. Surely the Body doesn't

prompt to pleasure only to be throttled? There's something in what

they were saying at Mess yesterday that these things are normal and

natural. I mean, human nature is human nature, and you can't alter

it. I don't think any man is, or can be, what they call 'pure.' I

s'pose every man has done these things, don't you?"

"No, I don't," I answered, conscious of hot cheeks. "_We_ may do

them, but there are people I can't imagine it of."

"But, again, there's the question whether War doesn't mean the

suspension of all ordinary moral laws. The law that you shan't kill

is in abeyance. The instinct of self-preservation has to be

suppressed. There's some justification for being an Epicurean for

the duration of the war."

"Perhaps so," acknowledged I. "I don't know."

As we left the ante-room and sat down to Mess, Doe announced:

"I've every intention of getting tight to-night."

"_Pourquoi pas?_" said I. "_C'est la guerre!_"

"Before I die," continued Doe, who was already flushed with gin and

vermouth, "I want to have lived. I want to have touched all the joys

and experiences of life. Pass the Chablis. Here's to you, Rupert.

Cheerioh!"

"Cheerioh!" toasted I, raising my glass. "Happy days!"

"I'm determined to be able to say, Rupert, whatever happens: 'Never

mind, I had a good time while it lasted!'"

"I'm with you," said I, who was now nearly as flushed as he. "Let's

be in everything up to the neck."

"Surely," Doe endorsed. "_C'est la guerre!_"

So with the meat and sweets went the wines of France; with the nuts

the sparkling "bubbly"; and in the ante-room Martinis, Benedictines,

and Whisky-Macdonalds. Soon the night became noisy, and Doe,

encouraged by riotous subalterns, jumped on a table and declaimed a

little thickly his prize Horatian Ode:

"Bring out the mellow wine, the best,

The sweet, convivial wine, and test

Its four-year-old maturity;

To Jove commit the rest:

Nor question his divine intents,

For, when he stays the battling elements

The wind shall brood o'er prostrate sea

And fail to move the ash's crest

Or stir the stilly cypress trees.

Be no forecaster of the dawn;

Deem it an asset, and be gay--

Come, merge to-morrow's misty morn

In the resplendence of to-day."

And, after all this, it was an easy step, lightly taken, to the

things of night. We set out for the strange streets; and there, in

the night air, the precocious young pedant, Edgar Doe, became,

despite all the new theories, the shy, simple boy he really was. We

would both become shy--shy of each other, and shy of the shameful

doorway.

And then the misery of the morning, to be quickly forgotten in the

joy of life!

§5

It was now that the Battle of Neuve Chapelle quenched Pennybet.

Archibald Pennybet, the boy who left school, determined to conquer

the world, and coolly confident of his power to mould circumstances

to his own ends, was crushed like an insect beneath the heavy foot

of war. He was just put out by a high-explosive shell. It didn't

kill him outright, but whipped forty jagged splinters into his body.

He was taken to an Advanced Dressing Station, where a chaplain, who

told us about his last minutes, found him, swathed in bandages from

his head to his heel. On a stretcher that rested on trestles he was

lying, conscious, though a little confused by morphia. He saw the

chaplain approaching him, and murmured, "Hallo, padre." So numerous

were his bandages that the chaplain saw nothing of the boy who was

speaking save the lazy Arab eyes and the mouth that had framed

impudence for twenty years.

"Hallo, what have you been doing to yourself?" asked the chaplain.

"Oh, only trying conclusions with an H.E., padre." The mouth smiled

at the corners.

"What about a cup of tea, now? Could you drink it?"

"I'll--try, padre." The eyes twinkled a little.

So the chaplain brought a mug of stewed tea, and Penny, laughing

weakly, said:

"You'll--have to pour it down--for me, padre. I can't move a muscle.

These bloody bandages--sorry, padre--these bandages. O God--"

"In pain?" gently inquired the chaplain.

"No. Only a prisoner. I can't move. Pour the tea down."

He gulped a little of the drink, and, dropping the heavily-fringed

eyelids, so that he appeared to be asleep, muttered:

"I suppose--I haven't a dog's chance. Find out if--I'm done for.

Find out for me, please."

"I asked the doctor before I came to you, old chap."

On hearing this, Penny opened and shut his eyes, and remained so

long just breathing that the chaplain wondered if he had lost

consciousness. But the eyes unclosed again, and the lips asked:

"Aren't you going to tell me, padre?"

"Yes, I--you won't be a prisoner much longer, old chap."

Not a word said Penny, but stared in wonder at his informant. It was

clear that he wanted to live, and to mould the world to his will.

There was a long silence, and then he murmured:

"Well, there are lots of others--who've gone through it--and lots

more who'll--have to go." And he shut his eyes in weary submission.

The chaplain suggested a prayer with him, and Penny agreed in the

half-jesting words: "But you'll--have to do it all for me, just as

you poured the tea down. I'm no good at that sort of thing."

And, when the prayer was over, he said with his old haughtiness:

"You know, padre--I was thinking--while you prayed. I suppose I've

led a selfish life--seeking my own ends--but, by Jove, I've had my

good time--and am ready to pay for it--if I must." His eyes flashed

defiantly. "If God puts me through it, _I_ shan't whine."

As the end drew nearer, he turned more and more into a child. After

all, he had never come of age. He spoke about his mother, sending

her his love, and saying: "I'm afraid, padre, that I led her a

life--but I'll bet she'd rather have had me and my plagues than not.

Don't you think so?"

He mentioned us with affection as "those two kids," and sent the

message that he hoped we at least should come through all right.

And then the lazy eyes closed in their last weariness, the impudent

lips parted, and Penny was dead. The War had beaten him. It was too

big a circumstance for him to tame.

§6

The night we heard of it, Doe threw himself into a chair and said:

"I'm miserable to-night, Rupert."

"So'm I," said I, looking out of the window over a moonlit sea.

"Poor old Penny. I don't know why it makes one feel a cur, but it

does, doesn't it?"

"Surely," answered Doe.

For a time we smoked our pipes in silence. I gazed at the long

silver pathway that the light of the moon had laid on the sea. Right

on the horizon, where the pathway met the sky, a boat with a tall

sail stood black against the light. Fancifully I imagined that its

dark shape resembled the outline of a man--say, perhaps, the figure

of Destiny--walking down the sparkling pathway towards us. I was in

the mood to fancy such things. Then Doe from his chair said:

"Old Penny always took the lead with us, didn't he? He's taken it

again."

"I don't see what you mean," answered I.

"Oh, it doesn't matter what I mean. I'm depressed to-night."

We spoke of it with the Colonel the next afternoon, when we were

having tea in his private room.

"It doesn't seem fair," complained Doe. "He could have done anything

with his life," and he added rather tritely: "Penny's story which

might have been monumental is now only a sort of broken pillar over

a churchyard grave."

"Nonsense," snapped the Colonel. "It was splendid, perfectly

splendid." And he arose from his chair and took down from a shelf a

little blue volume bearing the title "1914." With a pencil he

underlined certain phrases in a sonnet, and handed the book to us.

Doe brought his head close to mine, and we leant over the marked

page and read the lines together:

"These laid the world away, poured out the red

Sweet wine of youth, gave up the years to be

Of hope and joy--

Blow, bugles, blow--

Nobleness walks in our ways again--"

The Colonel--how like him!--saw the story of Pennybet, not as a

broken pillar, but as a graceful, upright column, with a richly

foliated capital.

§7

The march of History in these wonderful months brought with it an

event that stirred the world. This was the first great landing of

the British Forces on the toe of the Gallipoli Peninsula, in their

attempt to win a way for the Allied Navy through the Straits of the

Dardanelles. On April 25th, 1915, as all the world knows, the men of

the 29th Division came up like a sea-breeze out of the sea, and,

driving the Turks and Germans from their coastal defences, swept

clear for themselves a small tract of breathing room across that

extremity of Turkey. Leaping out of their boats, and crashing

through a murderous fire, they won a footing on Cape Helles, and

planted their feet firmly on the invaded territory.

Three Kensingtonians known to us fell dead in that costly battle.

Stanley, who tried me in the Prefects' Room, took seven machine-gun

bullets in his body, and died in a lighter as it approached the

beach. Lancaster, who in less grand years would undoubtedly have

bowled for Oxford and England, lay down on W. Beach and died. And

White, the gentle giant--Moles White, who swam so bravely in the

Bramhall-Erasmus Race, was knocked out somewhere on the high ground

inland.

And, almost immediately after that distant battle of the Helles

beaches, in the early days of May, when England was all blossom and

bud, our First Line of the Cheshires was landed on Gallipoli to

support the 29th Division. The news was all over the regiment in no

time. The First Line had gone to the Dardanelles! Had we heard the

latest? The First Line were actually on Gallipoli!

Consider what it meant to us. We were the Second Line, whose object

was to supply reinforcing drafts to the First Line in whatever

country it might be ordered to fight. The First Line--we were proud

of the fact--had been the first territorial division to leave

England. In September, 1914, it had sailed away, in an imposing

convoy of transports escorted by cruisers and destroyers, under

orders to garrison Egypt. There it had acted as the Army of

Occupation till that April day when the 29th Division laughed at the

prophecies of the German experts and stormed from the Ægean Sea the

beaches of Cape Helles. Scarcely had the news electrified Egypt

before the First Line received its orders to embark for Overseas.

And every man of them knew what _that_ meant.

So all we of the 2nd Tenth seemed marked down like branded sheep for

the Gallipoli front. The Colonel was full of it. With his elect mind

that saw right into the heart of things, he quickly unveiled the

poetry and romance of Britain's great enterprise at Gallipoli. He

crowded all his young officers into his private room for a lecture

on the campaign that was calling them. Having placed them on

chairs, on the carpet, on the hearth-rug, and on the fender, he

seated himself at his writing-table, like a hen in the midst of its

chickens, and began:

"For epic and dramatic interest this Dardanelles business is easily

top."

To the Colonel everything that he was enthusiastic about was epic

and dramatic and "on top." Just as he told us that our day was _the_

day and our generation _the_ generation, so now he set out to assure

us that Gallipoli was _the_ front.

"If you'll only get at the IDEAS behind what's going on at the

Helles beaches," he declared, with a rap on the table, "you'll be

thrilled, boys."

Then he reminded us that the Dardanelles Straits were the Hellespont

of the Ancient world, and the neighbouring Ægean Sea the most mystic

of the "wine-dark seas of Greece": he retold stories of Jason and

the Argonauts; of "Burning Sappho" in Lesbos; of Achilles in Scyros;

of Poseidon sitting upon Samothrace to watch the fight at Troy; and

of St. John the Divine at Patmos gazing up into the Heavenly

Jerusalem.

As he spoke, we were schoolboys again and listened with wide-open,

wistful eyes. From the fender and the hearth-rug, we saw Leander

swimming to Hero across the Dardanelles; we saw Darius, the Persian,

throwing his bridge over the same narrow passage, only to be

defeated at Marathon; and Xerxes, too, bridging the famous straits

to carry victory into Greece, till at last his navy went under at

Salamis. We saw the pathetic figure of Byron swimming where Leander

swam; and, in all, such an array of visions that the lure of the

Eternal Waterway gripped us, and we were a-fidget to be there.

"Have eyes to see this idea also," said the Colonel, who was a Tory

of Tories. "England dominates Gibraltar and Suez, the doors of the

Mediterranean; let her complete her constellation by winning from

the Turk the lost star of the Dardanelles, the only other entrance

to the Great Sea."

This roused the jingo devil in us, and we burst into applause.

Knowing thereby that he had won his audience, the Colonel beamed

with inspiration. He rose, as though so enthralling a subject could

only be dealt with standing, and cried:

"See this greater idea. For 500 years the Turk, by occupying

Constantinople, has blocked the old Royal Road to India and the

East. He is astride the very centre of the highways that should link

up the continents. He oppresses and destroys the Arab world, which

should be the natural junction of the great trunk railways that,

to-morrow, shall join Asia, Africa, and Europe in one splendid

spider's web. You are going to move the block from the line, and to

join the hands of the continents. Understand, and be enthusiastic. I

tell you, this joining of the continents is an unborn babe of

history that leapt in the womb the moment the British battleships

appeared off Cape Helles."

"By Jove, the Colonel's great!" thought I, as my heart jumped at his

magnificent words. "Where are his scoffers to-day? He's come into

his own." Lord, how small my little vanities seemed now! A fig for

them all! I was going out to build history. The Colonel had one at

least who was with him to the death.

"So much for secular interest," continued the Colonel, dropping

his voice. "Now, boys, follow me through this. You're not

over-religious, I expect, but you're Christians before you're

Moslems, and your hands should fly to your swords when I say the

Gallipoli campaign is a New Crusade. You're going out to force

a passage through the Dardanelles to Constantinople. And

Constantinople is a sacred city. It's the only ancient city purely

Christian in its origin, having been built by the first Christian

Emperor in honour of the Blessed Virgin. Which brings us to the

noblest idea of all. In their fight to wrest this city from the

Turk, the three great divisions of the Church are united once more.

The great Roman branch is represented by the soldiers and ships of

France: the great Eastern Orthodox branch by the Russians, who are

behind the fight: the great Anglican branch by the British, who can

be proud to have started the movement, and to be leading it. Thus

Christendom United fights for Constantinople, under the leadership

of the British, whose flag is made up of the crosses of the saints.

The army opposing the Christians fights under the crescent of Islam.

"It's the Cross against the Crescent again, my lads. By Jove, it's

splendid, perfectly splendid! And an English cross, too!

"Thank you, gentlemen; that's all; thank you."

§8

The blossom and buds of our English May became the fruit and flowers

of July, and Doe and I, maturing too, entered upon the age for

Active Service. There came a day when we were ordered to report for

a doctor's examination to see if we were fit for the front.

I shan't forget that testing. All thought we had little to fear from

the doctor. The drills and route-marches in sun, wind and rain had

tanned our flesh to pink and brown, and lit the lamps of health in

our eyes. And the whites of those eyes were blue-white.

But the doctor, a curt major, said "Strip," and took Doe first.

Now, a glance at Doe, when stripped, ought to have satisfied a

doctor. His figure, small in the hips, widened to a chest like a

Greek statue's; his limbs were slender and rounded; his skin was a

baby's. But no, the stolid old doctor carried on, as though Doe were

nothing to sing songs about. He tested his eyes, surveyed his teeth,

tried his chest, tapping him before and behind, and telling him to

say "99" and to cough. All these liberties so amused Doe that he

could scarcely manage the "99" or the cough for giggling. And I was

doing my best to increase his difficulty by pretending to be in

convulsions of smothered laughter.

Then the doctor sounded Doe's heart, and, as he did it, all the

laughter went out of my life. I suddenly remembered a scene, wherein

I lay in the baths at Kensingtowe, recovering from a faint, and Dr.

Chappy looked down upon me and said: "There may be a weakness at

your heart." As I remembered it, the first time for years, my heart

missed its beats. I saw rapidly succeeding visions of my rejection

by the doctor; my farewell to Doe, as he left for romantic

Gallipoli; and my return to the undistinguished career of the

Medically Unfit. I found myself repeating, after the fashion of

younger days (though at this wild-colt period I had done with God):

"O God, make him pass me. O God, make him pass me."

"All right, get dressed," the doctor commanded Doe.

"Come here, you," he said to me, brutally.

My eyes, teeth, and chest satisfied him; and then, like a loathly

eavesdropper, he listened at my heart. I was afraid my nervousness

would cause some irregular action of the detestable organ that would

finally down me in his eyes.

"All right, get dressed," he said; and, having put his stethoscope

away, he wrote something on two printed Army Forms and sealed them.

"Are we fit, sir?" asked I, in suspense.

"I've written my verdict," he said snappily, looking at me as

much as to say: "You aren't asked to converse. This isn't a

conversazione"; but, when he caught my gaze, he seemed, to repent

of his harshness, and answered gruffly:

"Both perfect."

"Oh, thanks, sir," said I. I could have kissed the old churl.

And so, before July was out, when Doe and I were at our separate

homes on a last leave, we received from the Director-General of

Movements our Embarkation Orders. Marked "SECRET," the documents

informed us that we were to report at Devonport "in service dress

uniform," with a view to proceeding to "the Mediterranean."

Seemingly we were to take no drafts of men, but travel independently

as reinforcements to the First Line at Cape Helles.

My mother turned very white when I showed her the letter. She had

heard ugly things about the Gallipoli Peninsula. People were saying

that the life of a junior subaltern on Helles was working out to an

average of fourteen days; and that, in the heat, the flies and dust

were scattering broadcast the germs of dysentery and enteric. And I

believe my restless excitement hurt her. But she only said: "I'm so

proud of it all," and kissed me.

The last night, however, as she sat in her chair, and I, after

walking excitedly about, stood in front of her, she took both my

hands and drew me, facing her, against her knees. I know she found

it sweet and poignant to have me in that position, for, when I was a

very small boy, it had been thus that she had drawn me to tell me

stories of my grandfather, Colonel Ray. She had dropped the habit,

when I was a shy and undemonstrative schoolboy, but had resumed it

happily during the last two years, for, by then, I had learnt in my

growing mannishness to delight in half-protectingly, half-childishly

stroking and embracing her.

She drew me, then, this last night against her knees and looked

lovingly at me. Her yearning heart was in her eyes. Her hands,

clasping mine, involuntarily gripped them very tight, as though she

were thinking: "I cannot give him up; I cannot let him go."

I smiled down at her, and, as I saw the moisture veil her eyes, I

felt that I, too, would like to cry. At last she said:

"If I'm never to see you again, Rupert, I shall yet always be

thankful for the nineteen years' happiness you've given me."

"Oh, mother," I said. No more words could I utter, for my eyes were

smarting worse than ever. I felt about eight years old.

"If all the rest of my life had to be sorrow," she whispered, no

longer concealing the fact that she was breaking down, "the last

nineteen years of you, Rupert, have made it all so well worth

living. I shall have had more happiness out of it than sorrow. Thank

you--for all you've given me."

She let go of my left hand, so as to free her own, with which she

might wipe her overflowing eyes. Then she dropped the cambric

handkerchief into her lap, and grasped my hand again. As for me, I

kept silence, for my mother's thanks were making my breath come in

those short, quick gasps, which a man must control if he would

prevent them breaking into sobs.

"You see," she explained, "you had _his_ eyes. Your grandfather used

to say of you, 'he has that Rupert's eyes.'"

"Mother!" I ejaculated. Only in that last moment did I, thoughtless

boy that I was, enter into an understanding of my mother's love for

the father I had never seen. In the last evening of nineteen years

there was revealed to me all that my mother's young widowhood had

meant to her.

"I didn't want to break down," she apologised, drawing me even

closer to her, as though appealing for my forgiveness, "but, oh! I

couldn't help it. I've never loved you so desperately as I do at

this moment."

"Mother," I stuttered, "I've been rotten--more rotten than you

know."

"No, my big boy, you've been perfect. I wouldn't have had you

different in any way. Everything about you pleased me. And how--how

can I give you up?"

"I'll come back to you, mother. I swear I will."

"Oh, but you mustn't allow any thought of me to unnerve you out

there, Rupert," she said, quickly releasing my hands, lest it were

traitorous to hold me back. "Do everything you are called to

do--however dangerous--" The word caused her to sob. "Don't think of

me when you've got to fight. No, I don't mean that--" Mother

was torn between her emotions. "Rather think of me, and do

the--dangerous thing--if it's right--yes, do it--because I want you

to, but oh!" she sobbed, "come back to me--come back--come back."

I leant over and, lifting her face up gently with both my hands,

kissed her and said:

"Yes, mother."

And then by a sudden effort of her will she seemed to recover. She

said smilingly and almost calmly:

"I'm so proud. I think it's wonderful your going out there."

§9

What more is there to tell of that old first period of my life which

ended at the gates of Devonport Dockyard? There was a long railway

journey with Doe, where half the best of green England, clad in

summer dress, swept in panorama past our carriage windows. Perhaps

we both watched it pass a little wistfully. Perhaps we thought of

bygone holiday-runs, when we had watched the same telegraph lines

switchbacking to Falmouth. There was a one-night stay at the Royal

Hotel, Devonport; and a walk together in the fresh morning down to

the Docks. There was a woman who touched Doe's sleeve and said: "You

poor dear lamb," and annoyed him grievously. There was the fat

policeman's challenge at the gates. And then we were through.

We had walked a little way, when a boy from the Royal Hotel, whom

the policeman suffered to pass, ran up to us like a messenger from a

world we had left behind.

"Lieutenant Ray, sir," he called.

I turned round and said "Yes?" inquiringly.

"Here's a telegram, sir, that arrived just after you left."

I took it undismayed, knowing it to be yet another telegram of good

wishes. "I'll bet you, you poor dear lamb," I said to Doe, "the

words are either 'Good-bye and God-speed,' or 'Cheerioh and a safe

return.'"

"Not taking the bet," said Doe. "How else could it be phrased?"

"Well, we'll see," said I, and opened the envelope. The words were:

"I am with you every moment--MOTHER."