“GOD’S IN HIS HEAVEN”
“I always wonder, Bent,” said Mr. Rankin, as the two men met in Colonus
on their way to the ground where the Cock-house match was about to
begin--“I always wonder why you, who pour such scorn on athleticism,
never by any chance miss a house match.”
“There are many things in this world to wonder at,” replied Mr. Bent;
“for instance, why the sea is boiling hot and why Radicals are the
most inveterate Tories in private life. But, as a matter of fact, it
is not the football that attracts me on these occasions so much as the
psychology of the competing housemasters.”
“Translate with brief notes,” said his companion.
“To an observer of human nature,” Mr. Bent explained, “nothing is
so illuminating as the behaviour of a housemaster when his house is
playing a match. Chowdler, of course, is elemental, and offers few
points of interest; he has the naked simplicity of the savage or the
sportsman--blatant in victory, ungenerous in defeat. But Trimble is
more complex, and, therefore, more worthy of study. If I join him, he
will affect an air of complete detachment and ask me for my views on
Welsh Disestablishment or Woman Suffrage; but he will interrupt himself
at intervals to murmur ‘Fools! asses! idiots! they deserve to be
beaten!’ Of course they _will_ be beaten?”
“Don’t be too sure of that!” said Mr. Rankin. “Two of Chowdler’s best
men are crocked, and Trimble’s have come on a lot lately.”
“Chowdler being beaten,” said Mr. Bent, “is a much more amusing
spectacle than Chowdler winning. But I don’t regard it as possible.
He always keeps a reserve force--a kind of territorial army--of lean
and hungry veterans with Christian names, who have grown old in the
service of their country. I am credibly informed, that his senior fag,
whom I see on the field, is a widower and maintains a family of four
at Brighton. They all belong to the class which Chowdler designates
as ‘poor old’ or ‘good old’; and against this combination of age,
godliness, and thrift, no ordinary house eleven stands a chance.”
“Don’t talk rot,” said Mr. Rankin, “_I_ back Trimble’s. They’ll take a
lot of beating to-day.”
The whole school and most of the masters were out to watch the game.
Mr. Tipham was conspicuous in his post-impressionist scarf, shouting
ostentatiously for Trimble’s. Mr. Grady hovered uneasily on the
outskirts, with the hunted look on his face; perhaps the noise reminded
him of his more uproarious classes. Mrs. Chowdler and Mrs. Trimble were
seated in a reserved enclosure, exchanging feline amenities. Their
better halves wandered about on opposite sides of the ground--Mr.
Chowdler on the touch-line, Mr. Trimble a little in the rear of the
spectators, in a state of internal agitation which would have made
sitting impossible. For the game was of a most thrilling description.
In the first half Trimble’s did most of the attacking and crossed over
with a lead of one goal to nothing.
“Oh, it’s all right!” said Mr. Trimble with assumed nonchalance to Mr.
Bent, who had just congratulated him on the results so far obtained.
“We shall go to pieces sure enough in the second half! my fellows have
a perfect genius for collapsing. The asses! If they hadn’t bungled all
their chances we might have been three up.”
It looked as if Mr. Trimble’s gloomy prophecy were going to be
fulfilled; for the game had hardly been restarted when a foolish
misunderstanding among the Trimbleite backs enabled Chowdler’s to
equalise; and, before their opponents had recovered from the shock and
consequent demoralisation, le Willow sent in a lucky shot which put his
side ahead. A yell of triumph went up from the Chowdlerites and their
supporters, and Mr. Chowdler himself, in spite of a heavy fur coat,
leapt into the air on the touch-line and beat his gloved hands one
against the other.
“Well played, Harry!” he roared. “Well played all! Good lads! Stick
_to_ it, stick _to_ it!”
“Given away with a pound of tea!” said Mr. Trimble with a short
mirthless laugh. “That settles the game; and I must say that we
thoroughly deserve to lose. Did you ever see such football!”
Mr. Trimble, though he was one of the best housemasters at Chiltern,
was a man of rather insignificant appearance. The youngest Miss Gussy
had once said of him that he always looked as if he were wearing
somebody else’s cast-off clothes. On this particular afternoon he
had on an ulster of antique design and faded yellow colour, which
contrasted unfavourably with the smart coat of his rival and seemed to
brand him as of inferior rank.
“The moral effect of that last goal,” said Mr. Bent, whose sympathies
were with the ulster, “may be disastrous; but the game is not over
yet. I must confess that I am beginning to be horribly excited. I have
not got your philosophic detachment, Trimble; and the sight of Chowdler
on the touch-line, clapping his great woollen gloves together, always
arouses most unchristian feelings in me. I want to see him, not merely
beaten, but crushed, disgraced, annihilated. Well played! Oh, well
played!”
For the Trimbleites, stung by disaster, had roused themselves to
superhuman efforts and were once more attacking fiercely. There was
a confused _mêlée_ in front of Chowdler’s goal. Suddenly the referee
blew his whistle, and when the players separated it was seen that a
Chowdlerite was lying disabled on the ground.
“Did you see that?” cried Mr. Chowdler, rushing up to Mr. Black, whom
he spied in his neighbourhood.
Mr. Black was a cautious man and shy of committing himself to excitable
colleagues, so he replied:
“I was just looking the other way, so I didn’t see what happened; but I
fear somebody is injured.”
“It is one of the most deliberate and foulest bits of play,” said Mr.
Chowdler in a voice for all to hear, “that I have ever witnessed.
Shameful, shameful! From this moment I take no further interest in the
game. Good God!” he added suddenly, throwing up his hands in a gesture
of despair, “it’s le Willow!” And he hurried off to assist the victim.
Le Willow had sprained an ankle and had to be helped off the field.
When he had been removed and the players had resumed their places, it
became evident that the referee had awarded a free kick. “All very
well!” muttered Mr. Chowdler to Mr. Rankin, as he hurried back to his
post on the touch-line, “but what’s the use of a free kick when it has
cost you your best man!”
It was indeed a poor consolation--merely a black mark against an
unscrupulous foe who cared nothing for black marks. But imagine Mr.
Chowdler’s horror, indignation, and dismay, when he suddenly realised
that the free kick had been awarded, not for, but against his house.
“Monstrous!” he cried aloud, as if appealing to the silent gods.
“Monstrous! I saw the foul, I saw it myself. A perfectly monstrous
decision!”
But, monstrous or not, such _was_ the decision and there was no appeal
from it. There was a moment of intense silence, and then a moan went
up from the Trimbleites and a roar of triumph from the Chowdlerites
as the shot which should have equalised, passed just over, instead of
under, the bar. For the next twenty minutes the Chowdlerite goal was
literally bombarded. Excitement, it is true, made the shooting rather
erratic; but, time after time, it looked as if the citadel must fall.
And it _would_ have fallen, but for Cheeny. When le Willow received his
mortal wound, Cheeny had stepped into his place as leader; and he was
everywhere. It is the right thing in the Chiltern game for the leader
to be everywhere; that is one of the features that has made of the
Chiltern game the great moral training that it is. So Cheeny did his
best to be ubiquitous, and played such a game as had not been played in
Colonus within the memory of that generation--falling, rising, charging
and being charged, stopping rushes, intercepting passes and spoiling
shots. And, after each unsuccessful attack on the Chowdlerite goal, Mr.
Trimble said calmly, “That settles it! Silly asses! They deserve to be
beaten!”
As for Mr. Chowdler, the perspiration stood on his brow and there was
a note of almost despairing appeal in his familiar rallying cry, “Good
lads! Good lads all! Stick _to_ it, stick _to_ it!” But slowly, at
the back of his mind, a purpose was shaping itself--a resolve that,
if the impossible _did_ happen and Cheeny kept the goal intact, then
Cheeny should be his Prefect. For a lad with such nerve and courage had
proved himself fit to govern, even though he were rather low in the
school.
Meanwhile, as the minutes slipped away, the excitement grew and
grew, and there was one continuous roar of Chowd_lers_! Jow_lers_!
Trim_bulls_! in all keys and every degree of hoarseness. People leapt
into the air, slapped each other on the back, threw their caps on the
ground and trampled on them, and performed all manner of strange and
inconsequent antics. Ten--eight--six--four minutes more! And then, just
at the end, amid howls of delight from their supporters, the defence,
with Cheeny at their head, broke away; and, when the whistle blew, the
ball was in mid-field and Chowdler’s were left victorious by two goals
to one.
Mr. Chowdler was swept away by a wave of intense, almost religious,
emotion. Foul play, monstrous decisions, past and present wrongs were
all forgotten for the moment. If the headmaster had come up and grasped
him by the hand, he would have fallen upon the headmaster’s neck--he
would have fallen upon _anybody’s_ neck. Never since the relief of
Ladysmith, where his own son was beleaguered, had he experienced
such a sense of thankfulness, joy, and exultation. Perhaps it was an
unconscious association of ideas which made him say to Mr. Tipham as he
passed him:
“Thank God! We have kept the flag flying!”
“Where?” asked Mr. Tipham icily.
But already Mr. Chowdler was far away. He had caught sight of Mr.
Trimble’s retreating figure, and was hurrying after him with the
chivalrous intention of pouring balm into smarting wounds. Mr. Trimble
was, indeed, making off as fast as he could, in the hope of avoiding an
application of this particular balm, which he had sampled on previous
occasions and which had always disagreed with him. His nerves were
tingling, and he was conscious of a feeling of suppressed irritation
which, he knew, would give him a broken night and spoil life for
several days. Suddenly, a heavy woollen glove descended on to his
shoulder and a manly voice panted in his ear:
“Condolences, poor old boy, condolences! My turn to-day, yours,
perhaps, to-morrow!”
“Hullo!” said Mr. Trimble, turning round and shuddering slightly
under the caress. “Is that you, Chowdler? I was looking for you;
congratulations.”
“Ta,” said Mr. Chowdler, without removing his hand. “Ta. We were a
bit too good for you, but you put up a tip-top fight. I’m afraid your
lot are a bit done up; it always tells hardest on the beaten side. I
expect my own lads have had very nearly as much as they wanted. But
_what_ a game!”
It is much easier to congratulate a successful rival warmly than to
receive his condolences gratefully; and Mr. Trimble’s vexation pierced
through his reply.
“It was indeed,” he replied; “the worst exhibition I’ve ever seen in
a Cock-house match! On to-day’s form any ordinarily respectable side
ought to have whopped you, but my lot were simply beneath contempt:
they didn’t deserve to win. Plenty of spirit, of course: one expects
that; but _the_ very worst football I’ve ever seen in Colonus.”
Mr. Chowdler withdrew his hand and the balm with it. As he said
afterwards to his wife, poor old Trimble never could take a beating.
To Mr. Chowdler the victory did not mean merely that his boys, by
superior luck or skill, had scored one goal more than the boys of
another house. It meant, somehow, that the Lanchester tradition had
been vindicated; that all that was best and noblest in the place, all
that made the past glorious and the present fruitful, had, in the face
of tremendous odds, asserted itself in a supreme and convincing manner.
He was glad that his house had taken the field with two of their best
players away, glad that le Willow had sprained his ankle and that the
referee had been flagrantly unfair. All things had worked together for
good, and misfortunes which looked like irretrievable disasters had
only served to enhance the moral sublimity of the victory. “God’s in
his Heaven, all’s right with the world.”
Something of all this Mr. Chowdler certainly said to his house in the
speech that he made to them at prayers that evening; and when, on the
following day, little Simpkin looked up at him with a wistful smile and
said, “Sir, don’t you think that the Lanchester tradition comes out at
football?” he felt that the boys had the root of the matter in them,
too. And he related the story to all his colleagues in turn--and to
some of them twice.