II

Long before breakfast next morning--while the lawns were yet frosted

with dew and lustrous in the level sunlight--Kenyon Harwood and C.

J. Forrester, the well-known cricketer, met and fraternised. Kenyon

and John had always spoken of Forrester as "C. J."; and when Kenyon

let this out, it was arranged, chiefly by C. J. himself, who was

amused and pleased, that Kenyon should never call him anything else.

Mr. Harwood, at breakfast, rather disapproved of the arrangement, but

it was hardly a matter for the paternal ukase. Meanwhile Kenyon had

personally conducted C. J. round the place, and had most impressively

introduced him (in the potting-shed) to John, who looked so proud and

so delighted as to put a head even on Kenyon's delight and pride. C.

J. was charmed with John; but he was less enthusiastic about a bricked

quadrangle, in front of the gardener's and coachman's cottages, with

wickets painted on a buttress, where Kenyon was constantly indulging in

small cricket--notably in the dinner-hour of John, who bolted his food

to come out and bowl to him. The skilled opinion of C. J. was not in

favour of "snob," as played by Kenyon with a racket and a soft ball.

"He says a racket is bad for you," Ethel understood from Kenyon (to

whom it was a very serious matter); "makes you play with a crooked bat,

and teaches you to spoon. So there's an end to snob! But what do you

think? He's going to take me into the town to choose a decent bat; and

we're going in for regular practice on the far lawn--John and all--if

the governor lets us. C. J.'s going to coach me. Think of being coached

by C. J. Forrester!"

"Father is sure to let you," said Ethel; and certainly Mr. Harwood

did not say no; but his consent was coldly given, and one thing he

stipulated almost sternly.

"I won't have Kenyon run. I shall put a stop to it if he does. It might

kill him."

"Ah, he has told me about that." Forrester added, simply, "I am so

sorry!"

Kenyon, in fact, in explaining the system of scoring at snob--a most

ingenious system--had said:

"You see, I mayn't run my runs. I know the boundaries don't make half

such a good game, but I can't help it. What's wrong? I'm sure _I_ can't

tell you. I've been to heaps of doctors, but they never say much to me;

they just mess about and then send you back to the room where you look

at the papers. Mother used to take me to London on purpose, and the

governor's done so twice. It's my hip, or some rot. It's a jolly bore,

for it feels all right, and I'm positive I _could_ run, and ride, and

go to school. Blow the doctors!"

"But obey them," C. J. had said, seriously; "you should go in for

obeying orders, Kenyon."

They got the bat. It was used a great deal during those few days,

the too few days of C. J.'s visit; and was permitted to repose in C.

J.'s cricket-bag, cheek by jowl with bruised veterans that had served

with honour at Lord's and at the Oval. Kenyon was very mindful of

those services, and handled the big bats even more reverently than

he shook his hero's hand. They lent themselves to this sort of thing

more readily than C. J. did. Small doubt that Kenyon--at all events

at first--would have had his hero a trifle more heroic than the

Almighty had made him. There was nothing intrinsically venerable in his

personality, as there might have been. He was infinitely more friendly

than Kenyon had dreamt of finding him; he was altogether nicer; but

he did lack the vague inexpressible distinction with which the boy's

imagination invested the heroes of _Lillywhite's Guide_.

That summer was the loveliest of its decade, and Kenyon made the most

of it. He had never before seemed so strong, and well, and promising.

For the first time in his life his really miserable little body seemed

equal--at moments--to his mighty spirit; and the days of C. J. were

the brightest and happiest he had ever known. In that jolly, manly

companionship the unrealised want of an intensely masculine young

soul was insensibly filled. Hard, perhaps, to fill it so completely

for so short a time: the cricketer's departure was so soon at hand!

As it was he had put it off some days, because he liked Kenyon with

an extraordinary liking. But he was wanted at the Oval on the last

Thursday in July; his play with Kenyon and John (though John was a

rough natural bowler) could by no stretch of imagination be regarded as

practice for an important county match; he decided to tear himself away

on the Tuesday morning.

He had been with them only a week, but the Harwoods had bitten deep

into his life, a life not wholly consecrated to cricket. Forrester had

definite aspirations, and some very noble intentions; and he happened

to possess the character to give this spiritual baggage some value,

in his case. Also he had a kind heart, which Kenyon had completely

won. He liked Ethel; but one could not merely like Kenyon, with his

frail little frame and his splendid spirit. Ethel, however, was very

sweet; her eyes were like Kenyon's in everything but their sadness, as

deep and lustrous, but so often sad. Her love for Kenyon was the most

pathetic thing but one that Forrester had ever seen. The more touching

spectacle was that of the father of Ethel and Kenyon, who seemed to

have very little love for his children, and to conceal what he had. He

was nice enough to Forrester, who found him a different being at the

club, affable, good-natured, amusing in his sardonic way. He talked a

little to Forrester about the children, a very little, but enough to

make Forrester sincerely sorry for him. He was sorrier for Mr. Harwood

than for Ethel or for Kenyon himself. He pitied him profoundly on

Kenyon's account, but less because the boy might never live to grow

up, than because, as Forrester read father and son, there would never

be much love to lose between them. As for Kenyon, there was a chance

for him yet: even the family doctor declared that he had never been so

well as he was now. His vitality--his amazing vitality--seemed finally

to upset a certain pessimistic calculation. His trouble might never

become a greater trouble than it had been already; and this summer it

had been no trouble at all, his very limp was no longer noticeable.

He might yet go to school; and Forrester himself was going to start a

small boys' school the following summer, in partnership with an older

man, in one of the healthiest spots in the island. St. Crispin's had

been spoken of for Kenyon. Kenyon himself spoke of little else during

Forrester's last day or two. To go to school at St. Crispin's was now

the dream of his life.

"I am sorry we told him about it," Mr. Harwood said, gloomily. "He may

never be able to go there; he may never again be so well as he is now;

all the summer it has seemed too good to last!"

Forrester, for his part, thought it good for the boy to have things

to look forward to, thought that, if he could go, the change of life

and climate might prove the saving and making of him. Beyond this, he

honestly hoped for the best (whereas Mr. Harwood seemed to look for the

worst), and expressed his hope--often a really strong one--with all

possible emphasis.

He carries with him still some intensely vivid impressions of this

visit, but especially of the last day or two, when the weather was

hotter than ever--despite one splendid shower--and Kenyon if anything

more alert, active and keen. He remembers, for example, how Ethel

and Kenyon and he tore to an outlying greenhouse for shelter from

that shower, or rather how he carried Kenyon. In the greenhouse,

accompanied by a tremendous rattle of rain on the sloping glass, Kenyon

sang them "Willow the King," the Harrow cricket song, which Tommy

Barnard, the boy with the cricket-net, had taught Kenyon among less

pretty things. Clear through the years Forrester can hear Kenyon's

jolly treble, and Ethel's shy notes, and his own most brazen bass in

the chorus; he even recollects the verse in which the singer broke down

through too strong a sense of its humour:--

"Who is this?" King Willow he swore,

"Hops like that to a gentleman's door?

Who's afraid of a Duke like him?

Fiddlededee!" says the monarch slim.

"What do you say, my courtiers three?"

And the courtiers all said "Fiddlededee!"

But his last evening, the Monday evening, C. J. Forrester remembers

best. They had an immense match--double-wicket. The head gardener,

the coachman, John (captain) and the butler made one side; Forrester,

Kenyon, Ethel (Kenyon insisted) and T. Barnard (home early, _æger_)

were the other. "It's Gentlemen and Players," John said with a gaping

grin; and the Players won, in spite of C. J., who, at the last, did all

he knew, for Kenyon's sake.

It was a gorgeous evening. The sun set slowly on a gaudy scene; the

wealth of colour was almost tropical. The red light glared between the

trees, their crests swayed gently against the palest, purest amber.

Mr. Harwood looked on rather kindly with his cigar; and the shadow of

his son, in for the second time, lay along the pitch like a single

plank. Ethel was running for him, and it was really exciting, for

there were runs to get; it was the last wicket; and Kenyon, to C. J.'s

secret sorrow, and in spite of C. J.'s distinguished coaching, was not

a practical cricketer. Yet he was doing really very well this evening.

They did not bowl too easily to him, he would not have stood that; they

bowled very nearly their best; but Kenyon's bat managed somehow to get

in the way, and once he got hold of one wide of his legs, and sent

it an astonishing distance, in fact over the wall. Even Mr. Harwood

clapped his hands, and Forrester muttered, "That's the happiest moment

of his life!" Certainly Kenyon knew more about that leg-hit ever

afterwards than he did at the moment, for, it must be owned, it was a

fluke; but the very next ball Kenyon was out--run out through Ethel's

petticoats--and the game was lost.

"Oh, Ethel!" he cried, his flush of ecstasy wiped out in an instant. "I

could have run the thing myself!"

Ethel was dreadfully grieved, and showed it so unmistakably that

Kenyon, shifting his ground, turned hotly to an unlucky groom who had

been standing umpire.

"I don't believe she _was_ out, Fisher!" he exclaimed more angrily

than ever. Mr. Harwood snatched his cigar from his mouth; but C. J.

forestalled his interference by running up and taking Kenyon by the arm.

"My dear fellow, I'm surprised at you! To dispute the umpire! I thought

you were such a sportsman? You must learn to take a licking, and go out

grinning, like a man."

Kenyon was crushed--by his hero. He stammered an apology, with a

crimson face, and left the lawn with the sweetness of that leg-hit

already turned in an instant to gall. And there was a knock at

Forrester's door while he was dressing for dinner, and in crept Kenyon,

hanging his head, and shut the door and burst into tears.

"Oh, you'll never think the same of me again, C. J.! A nice fellow

you'll think me, who can't stand getting out--a nice fellow for your

school!"

C. J., in his shirt and trousers, looked down very tenderly on the

little quivering figure in flannels. Kenyon was standing awkwardly, as

he sometimes would when tired.

"My dear old fellow, it was only a game--yet it was life! We live our

lives as we play our games; and we _must_ be sportsmen, and bide by the

umpire's decision, and go out grinning when it's against us. Do you

see, Ken?"

"I see," said Kenyon, with sudden firmness. "I have learnt a lesson.

I'll never forget it."

"Ah, you may learn many a lesson from cricket, Kenyon," said C. J. "And

when you have learnt to play the game--pluckily--unselfishly--as well

as you can--then you've learnt how to live too!" He was only saying

what he has been preaching to his school ever since; but now he says

that no one has ever attended to him as Kenyon did.

Kenyon looked up with wet, pleading eyes. "Then--you will have me at

St. Crispin's?"

But C. J. only ruffled the boy's brown hair.