The others poured out into the sunshine, but David lingered behind with
Bags and Ferrers Major, and began burrowing in his locker to find the
box belonging to his two stag-beetles. They were male and female, as the
lady’s absence of long horns testified, and it was hoped that even in
confinement she might some day be confined. Indeed, there were several
bets on, as to which form the babies would take—whether they would be
eggs or some sort of caterpillar, or minute but fully developed
stag-beetles. The box in question was a small cardboard oblong, of
cramped dimensions; but really it was no more than their saloon
travelling-carriage, for they lived in David’s washing-basin at night,
since it had been ascertained that the sides of it were too steep and
slippery to allow their escape, and at other times had the run of his
desk in school-hours, and were allowed quantities of healthy exercise
when their owner was unoccupied and could look after their wayward
steps. But now, since after chapel David would not come back to the
class-room, it was necessary to put them in their travelling-carriage,
which was pierced with holes, so that such air as there might happen to
be in David’s pocket should penetrate to them. A few slips of grass and
leaves would be sufficient to sustain them until they were regaled with
bits of cake and a strawberry or two from the tea which was to be
provided for the first form after chapel.
The lady was lying on her back, as good as gold, waving her legs slowly
in the air, having probably fallen down on some climbing expedition
about the roof of the locker, but the stag himself (called “The Monarch
of the Glen”) could not at once be found. But a little careful rummaging
disclosed him sitting morosely in a crevice between a grammar and a
geography book.
“I say, I don’t believe the Monarch’s well,” said David.
“Shouldn’t think so, living in your fuggy desk,” said Bags, strolling
out of the room.
Suddenly David perceived, as by a special revelation, that he must kick
Bags. Bags had thrown an inky dart at him, and though, in the depression
of the Bible-lesson, that had been forgotten, it started into prominence
again in his mind. Further, Bags had added insult to injury by saying
that his desk was fuggy. Certainly he must kick Bags, just once,
juicily, and call it all square.
David gingerly took the Monarch by the waist, so that his pincers nipped
the empty air, and put him and his spouse into their travelling
carriage.
“Come on, Ferrers,” he said.
On their way across to chapel he paused a moment to pick a few leaves
from the bright squibs of root-growth on the elm just outside the
class-room, and took Ferrer’s arm.
“Don’t let’s go too quick,” he said. “I want to catch Bags up just as we
get to chapel-door, and if I was alone he might suspect. Then you’ll
see: I’ll give him one kick, just one, but a beauty. Let’s seem to be
talking.”
Diabolically diplomatic, David managed his manœuvre well, gradually
gaining on his unsuspecting victim, and stalking him with infinite
stealth and relish. There was no question of honour in coming behind him
thus unaware, for Bags had launched a dart at him without provocation,
and had also gone jauntily across to chapel after making that
ill-advised remark about David’s fuggy desk. Should Bags resent a good
sound kick, which was a pretty just payment of the score, David would be
perfectly happy to fight him afterwards if he desired it. It was quite
all right.
David, sometimes lounging, sometimes hurrying, and all the time talking
in a foolish, interested manner to Ferrers, came up close to the rear of
the enemy just two steps outside chapel-door. They were the last of the
boys to go in, and David had space to swing his leg. For the moment Bags
was too much astonished to be hurt, and David passed him with a slight
smile on his hopelessly seraphic face, went up the gangway to his seat
in the choir just opposite the organ, knelt down, and covered a
gratified face with his hands. He loved doing things neatly, and to kick
Bags, just once, quite correctly like that, was as good as cutting a
ball just out of reach of point.
The evening service began, psalms and canticles and hymns all to be
sung. It was that terrible fifteenth evening of the month, and page
after page of psalm must be gone through. Only that morning David and
Ferrers had had an impassioned argument as to whether the Old or the New
Testament was “the beastliest,” Ferrers maintaining that there was
nothing in the New Testament that could compare with the Kings of Israel
and Judah, while David (and his argument was strengthened after the last
hour) affirmed that nothing B.C. could beat the missionary journeys, not
if it tried with both hands. But as the psalm for the fifteenth evening
(to a single chant too) went on, he felt that it was difficult to feel
honestly that there could be anything beastlier, especially if you had
not had tea. He hoped Ferrers would not adduce that as a crushing
argument for the supremacy of the Old Testament. On it went, and, as an
antidote to its interminableness, David began to think of other and more
pleasant things. There was his eleven-cap and his twenty-four runs in
the last match to muse upon as a resisting topic to the tedium of the
children of Israel, and in especial one gorgeous pull for four he had
made. Also he could feel on the side of his leg the slight vibration
from the travelling-carriage of the Monarch and his wife, which showed
they were moving about, enjoying, it was to be hoped, the fresh
elm-leaves he had nipped off for them. It was in his left-hand trousers
pocket that these were confined, a place to be felt stealthily and
exteriorly, since hands-in-pockets was a forbidden attitude in chapel.
Just below the box were the two half-crowns, the yet unchanged splendour
of Aunt Eleanor’s gift. Also in anticipation was the thought of the tea
that should succeed chapel, and in retrospect the remembrance of the
beautiful kick he had given Bags. But the seventy-eighth psalm was a
corker for all that, and if Ferrers Major brought it up, he would have
to admit it.
The psalm began to show promise of ending, and it was already possible
to count the remaining verses. Then suddenly there was something so
delightful in it as a topical allusion, that Ferrers could no longer
advance it as being beastlier than anything in the New Testament. And
David’s contribution to the music swelled out at once more lustily, and
he looked and beamed towards Bags as he sang, “He smote his enemies in
the hinder part, and put them to a perpetual shame.”
Ferrers caught his eye and understood, but Bags did not, which was a
pity. David felt he must have seen the appositeness of that verse, but
he did not look up. Poor old Bags! perhaps he was much hurt. David had
not meant to hurt him much; he had only wanted to kick him neatly and
squarely and peacefully, ready to fight afterwards, if desired.
The senior boys of the first form read the lessons at these services,
and it was the turn of Stone and Ferrers to “make asses of themselves”
in the school phrase. The rest of the congregation, masters and boys,
followed the reading in their Bibles, or at any rate found the place and
meditated. Among the masters there was Mr. Dutton, looking peculiarly
depressed, with whom, in spite of his general beastliness, David felt a
certain sympathy, as he was commanded to honour the Head immediately
afterwards on the subject of the yellow-backed novel. At the organ were
seated the two Misses Acland, daughters of the Head, one to play, the
other to turn over leaves for her sister and to pull out stops or put
them in. She also poked away at the pedals and occasionally dropped
books on the keys, producing the most Wagnerian effects. These two
female figures, with plump backs turned to him, afforded David plenty of
rather acid reflection. Goggles (so called for obvious reasons, but
addressed as Miss Mabel) was the elder, and wasn’t so bad, though she
had a woeful tendency to improve and console the occasion when any of
the boys got into trouble, and was a kind of official dove with an
olive-branch after the deluge. But Carrots (this concerning her hair,
which otherwise belonged to Miss Edith) had lately shown herself
altogether too beastly. It was a moral certainty that it was she who had
“sneaked” to her father, when, last week, Ferrers had gone out of
bounds, because he had seen her in Richmond, and so of course she had
seen him and told the Head. It had been a whole-school day and all the
other masters had been in their class-rooms, and it _must_ have been
Carrots. Ferrers had had the toothache, and was excused afternoon
school, and, feeling better, had gone to Richmond. It wasn’t fair of the
family to spy for the Head; he, of course, and the rest of the masters,
were your natural enemies, and if you were caught by them that was the
fortune of war. But if Carrots or Goggles and all the crew were enemies
also, they ought to be declared enemies. Instead they pretended to be
friends, with their sisterly advice, and their olive-branches and their
treacherous smiles. . . . Oh, the Magnificat.
That was soon over, and again David’s disapproving eye glanced up at
Goggles and Carrots during the second lesson. This time they had turned
round on their organ-bench and spread their Bibles on their knees,
ostentatiously following the lesson as an example to the school. David
was afraid they were hypocrites, and, having found his place, continued
to meditate on them. Yes: there had been a first-form conference on the
subject of Goggles and Carrots when Ferrers returned that afternoon from
a short and extremely painful interview with the Head, and it had been
settled that Goggles and Carrots must be cut. David had, at the time,
been opposed to cutting Goggles as well as her sneaking sister, because
Goggles wasn’t such a bad chap, and there was nothing against her
personally. But he and a small minority had been overruled; if Carrots
had sneaked, Goggles might sneak next, and it was wiser to have no truck
at all with the enemy’s family. Though Goggles at this moment looked
innocent enough, with the low sun shining through a stained glass window
on to her spectacles and protuberant eyes, David felt that after all, it
was wiser to err on the side of prudence than to be led into a course of
mistaken kindness. But it was rather difficult: only yesterday she had
congratulated him, with apparent sincerity, on his innings of
twenty-four, and had offered him a visit to the strawberry-beds in the
garden. He had been compelled, by the resolution passed by the
sixth-form conference, to decline this temptation, and to say with a
stony face, “Thank you, Miss Mabel, but I can’t.” Even that was not
strictly in accordance with the vow: he ought really to have icily
raised his cap, and said nothing whatever.
It was part of the career of Goggles and Carrots to make the service
what is called “bright,” which meant there was a good deal of singing.
This presupposed, in order to ensure a proper performance, a certain
amount of choir-practice. These practices were not allowed to take the
place of other school-work, but were held in the less useful hours of
play-time. In compensation, the members of the choir were rewarded with
an extra half-holiday towards the end of term, if they had missed no
practices, and before now Goggles had been known, when a boy had missed,
say, only one practice, to falsify the register, and send up his name to
her father as an unremitting attendant, which did not look as if she was
a bad chap; but, on the other hand, she was sister to her sister, about
whom there could be no doubt whatever. She _must_ have sneaked; Ferrers
had seen her in Richmond, and immediately on his return he had been
summoned and dealt with. Probably all girls were dishonourable, and so
it was best to cut Goggles too. And it was not as if Carrots was only a
kid, who must be taught the proper ways of school-life; she was quite
grown up, and, very likely, would never see fifteen again. Besides—oh,
the Nunc Dimittis, though they were a long way off being dismissed yet.
A slight alleviation happened here, for the wind of the organ suddenly
ran out with a wail and a wheeze, and was started again by the blower in
so feverish a haste that the notes shook and trembled as he pumped. Soon
after, in privacy of kneeling, David was able to peep into the
stag-beetles’ travelling-carriage, and observe with delight that the
Monarch was browsing on elm-leaves. He appeared to have an excellent
appetite, and was swiftly put away again as they rose for the hymn.
Instead, “Anthem” was announced by the Head, without further
particularisation, since there was but one. But it seemed scarcely
credible that any one could have been so mean as to couple an Anthem to
that unending seventy-eighth psalm. No doubt this was reprisal on the
part of Goggles and Carrots. It must be duly considered afterwards.
David’s mind had been pretty busy with these trains of thought, and his
attention to the service, from a devotional point of view, intermittent
and fragmentary. More than once he stole a glance at Bags as a general
reconnoitring measure. It appeared from a certain gingerliness in Bags’s
movements, when he sat down or stood, that he was not quite comfortable,
and, since accounts had been squared between them, David hoped he had
not hurt him much; the kick in the main was meant to be symbolical, and
he determined that unless Bags actually wanted to be nasty, he would
make it up directly after chapel. David’s cheerful and eager soul hated
prolonged or nagging warfare, and, since Bags had been paid for his
injudicious behaviour during school that afternoon, David was quite
ready to proclaim or assent to a cordial _pax_. Naturally, if Bags did
not want _pax_, he should have as much _bellum_ as he wished for, and
during the prayer for Parliament, in which it was frankly impossible for
a proper boy of thirteen to take any interest, David planned a raid or
two. Bags was like a girl in some ways: he couldn’t stand creeping
things, so if he didn’t want _pax_, he should find black-beetles in his
bed without any more ado about the matter. These were easily procured;
they lived in the water-pipes of a disused lavatory, and, by turning on
a tap, horrible half-drowned specimens descended wriggling into the
basin. He had put two in Bags’s bed once before, with the splendid
effect that Bags spent the night on the floor in his dressing-gown,
rather than encounter them, whereas, when he had tried the same trick on
David, David had smashed the intruders to death with his slipper, and
slept soundly amid the mutilated corpses. Yes, they should be about
Bags’s path, and about his bed—particularly his bed—he should find
them in his pockets and his boots, until he abandoned nagging warfare,
and either came to blows and had done with it, or made peace like a
gentleman. David had fought Bags once before, and Bags did not want any
more on that occasion, and said so. David, as a matter of fact, did not
want any more either, and his face for the next few days had been
notably more lumpy than Bags’s, but, by virtue of an extra ounce of
grit, he had not said so. Therefore——
“Amen” sang David fervently, looking as if he had just come down from an
Italian picture of singing angels. But he forgot that the last “Amen”
went down, instead of remaining on the same note.
Sermon-time afforded more opportunities for meditation, for he swiftly
decided that he could not understand what the Head was driving at. . . .
There was another and most important cricket-match at the end of this
week, and until that was over he would not be able to smoke at all,
because he had made a vow that if he made more than ten runs in the last
match, he would not smoke for ten days. This vow he had written out on a
piece of paper, and buried it in a match-box below a certain tree. On
the whole that had been rather a clever vow, since, to begin with, he
did not like smoking at all, and only did it because just now it was the
smart thing to do. But a vow of this importance, which he would have to
tell the smoking club about when they met on Tuesday, would certainly be
held sacred even by Stone, who was the dashing president of the club,
and often smoked a cigarette right through without minding, though it
was only incumbent on members to smoke half a cigarette at these
meetings. But they had to do that without being sick, and if you were
sick three times you were turned out of the club. Furthermore, as an
additional cleverness in the vow, he had been told by a fellow at a
public school that smoking was bad for the eye, and even when people
were quite old, as at Oxford or Cambridge, they never smoked when they
were in training. Again, if his vow was not accepted as a reason for
abstention, he would have to resign, but that he really did not mind
about, for it was stupid to put smoking before cricket. Also the secret
of the smoking club had somehow leaked out, and now that the badge was
no longer a mystery to those who did not belong, half the fun was gone.
This badge was a piece of copper-wire bent into the shape of S. C., for
Smoking Club, and when they were engaged in these sacred operations, it
had to be worn in the buttonhole; otherwise there was a fine of a
halfpenny, which helped to fill the coffers of the club, and was spent
in cigarettes. But only last week Bags, who did not belong, happened to
see his badge, and said casually, “Hullo, you belong to the Sick Club,
do you?” This was annoying, because it not only implied a knowledge of
the club, but darkly alluded to its rules. David had been ready enough
on this occasion, and had answered smartly, “If you belonged to an S.
C., it would be the Sneak Club,” and the shot had gone home, for Bags
had sneaked once. Of course it was ever so long ago, the term before
last, before Bags had become a decent chap, and the incident had been
suitably buried. But the thought of its possible resuscitation made Bags
extremely civil for several days.
Certain words, “the horror of sin, the infamy of evil,” caught David’s
ears at this moment, and he attended for a little. It seemed to him
rather poor stuff, and why the Head should sway about and shout like
that was impossible to conjecture. But it gave him a hint, and David,
closely listening, intended to reproduce some of it in dormitory that
night. A night-shirt made an admirable surplice, and a pair of trousers
hung over the shoulders would make a ripping stole. He himself would be
the Head, as he had thought of it, and Stone and Ferrers should be
stuffed with pillows to represent Goggles and Carrots, with his bed as
the organ. David would march the whole way down the dormitory, after the
matron had gone, with the Head’s rocking walk and some cotton-wool for a
beard, preceded by a small boy carrying a poker. . . .
Then suddenly the Head’s voice changed; it became extraordinarily solemn
and beautiful, as it did sometimes when he read to them. And the words
were beautiful, and they affected David in that puzzling,
incomprehensible manner in which words did. Words and the pictures, dim
and only half-conscious, that they produced in his mind, often had that
effect on him; they gave him a sort of homesick yearning, and an ache,
as if his mind was hungry. And it was clear that what he was saying
moved the Head in the same sort of way; his voice shook and grew lower
yet, reminding David of something he had felt once when he woke early
and heard the chirruping of birds before daybreak. . . .
“So prepare to be men,” he said, “and when manhood dawns on you, let it
dawn on you as on the clean dewy grass, with birds singing in your
hearts, and innocence still looking from your eyes. Never contemplate
evil, and the desire of it will fade from you. Run away from it, if by
staying near it you would yield, and ‘Whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report, think on those things.’”
David gave a little gulp; not only were these beautiful words, but they
meant something. . . .
But the sermon was over, and it was impossible not to remember that in a
few minutes now he would be having tea in the housekeeper’s room, while
the wretched Dubs was doing the Head the honour to wait on him. It had
been “jam” to see the Head stamp on that yellow-covered book! And, with
any luck, the fragments of it would be in the grate of the museum
to-morrow. David determined to get up early, and see what it was about.
It was in French, which was a bore, but it was worth while, even at the
trouble of looking out heaps of words, to see what it was that had made
the Head in such a wax. . . . Or had it something to do with the things
the Head told them they must run away from. . . .
Rum old bird, the Head. But he did say jolly things sometimes.