yet, when a fellow in the head-master's class told a boy in the lowest
form to do anything, why, it so happened that he generally did it. So,
when Crawley observed:
"There's a beautiful bit of smooth ice under here. I say, you two,
Penryhn and Simmonds, suppose you take those brooms and clear a bit of
it."
Penryhn and Simmonds acted on the suggestion. After clearing some
twenty square yards of beautiful black ice, Simmonds turned up something
hard, which he picked up and invoked Jupiter.
"What is it?" asked Penryhn.
"Findings, keepings," responded Simmonds.
"Let's look," said Penryhn. "Why, that is Buller's knife!"
"Ah, ah! how do you know that?"
"Why, it has a punch in it; he lent it me to punch a hole in my strap
when we got home from skating one day. It has his name engraved upon it
somewhere; there it is, look, on that plate--`T. Buller'."
"Like my luck!" sighed Simmonds; "I never found anything yet but what it
belonged to some other fellow."
"What was that you said, Penryhn, about Buller lending you his knife?"
asked Crawley, who was cutting threes on the new bit of ice. "What day
was it?"
"The day before the snow; yesterday week, that was."
"What time?"
"In the evening, just before supper, when I was cleaning up my skates
for next day. By Jove! I see what you are driving at. Buller has not
been any day since, so he must have dropped it when he came that night."
"Of course. Now, you and Simmonds run back to school, find Cookson, who
is senior master now the doctor's out, ask leave to go over to
Penredding, and cut there as hard as you can split."
The pair were off before he could finish his sentence.
The party assembled in Mr Elliot's library was the same as on the week
previously, with the addition of a detective, who had detected nothing,
and Mr Rabbits, who now testified that he saw skates hanging round
Buller's neck when he was getting in at the window. The question was
concerning a further remand, for the magistrate firmly refused to commit
the boy for trial on the evidence before them. "I grant that it is
suspicious; he was out late at night when he had no business to be, and
that same night a Weston boy was, almost to a certainty, seized by
Bradley in the coppice. But if one boy could get out another might, and
now it is proved that this one had his skates with him at the time. No
jury would convict on such evidence." He did not even like granting a
remand, but neither did he like to stand out too strongly against the
wishes of Lord Woodruff.
At this juncture voices were heard outside, and presently a constable
opened the door and said that two young gentlemen from Weston had
something to say.
"Found the real culprit, perhaps," muttered Lord Woodruff.
"Bring them in," said the magistrate, and Simmonds and Penryhn entered,
hot, excited, and still panting for breath.
"Please, sir, we have leave from Mr Cookson, and I have found Tom
Bowling--I mean Buller's knife," said the former, addressing Dr
Jolliffe, who waved his hand towards Mr Elliot in silence, and frowned.
"Wait a bit, my lad, do not be flurried," said the magistrate; "stand
there. Let him be sworn," he added to the clerk. And Simmonds took his
first legitimate oath.
Then he told the simple story which we know. And when he had done
Penryhn kissed the book in his turn and completed the chain of evidence.
It was really quite sufficiently clear, that unless yet another boy had
got out, and gone skating on the gravel-pits that night, taking Buller's
knife with him and losing it, that he himself had been there as he said;
and therefore that he was not in the coppice, two miles on the other
side of Weston. Lord Woodruff himself was convinced, and Buller was at
once discharged, everybody shaking hands with him.
"And, Buller," said Dr Jolliffe as they left the house, "as I hope that
the anxiety you have been subjected to by your own unlawful action will
prove sufficient punishment, I shall not take any further notice of your
breaking out that night. Let it be a lesson to you, that you cannot
engage in what is unlawful without assuming something which is common to
_all_ criminals, and running the risk of being mixed up with them."
Which was a beautifully mild preachee to take the place of floggee.
Tom Bowling received quite an ovation next day, and did not know what to
do with his popularity. He was ready enough to skate now, but a thaw
came, and there was no other chance afforded that term.
CHAPTER TWELVE.
A HOLIDAY INVITATION.
A week before the Christmas holidays a boy named Gould came up to
Crawley and said, "I wish you would come and stay with me a week or so
this Christmas at my father's place in Suffolk, Nugget Towers. The best
of the shooting is over, the partridges being very wild by now, and it
is not a pheasant country, as there are no woods to speak of. But there
are a good many snipe down towards the river, so you had better bring
your gun. Besides we will have a day's partridge driving, for there are
plenty, if you could only get at them. And there is a pack of foxhounds
that meets about ten miles off once a week at least, and some harriers
close by. I generally go out with the harriers. We can give you a
mount; you do not ride above twelve stone I should say, do you?"
"No, I should think not, but I have not been weighed lately," replied
Crawley. "You are very kind, I am sure, but does your father know?
Perhaps he has made arrangements to fill his house."
"Oh no! it is all right. My father does not bother his head about such
things; he is perpetually going to London, and thinking of business.
But my mother and sisters want you to come, and have told me to ask
you."
"I am much obliged to them, they are very good. And I should like it
very much," said Crawley, somewhat more hesitatingly than it was his
wont to speak.
For this invitation was rather a hot coal on his head. Gould had
courted his acquaintance and he had rather snubbed him, not liking him
particularly. He was rich, which mattered to nobody, but he gave
himself airs on the strength of it, and that did. There are few things
more irritating than to hear anyone perpetually bragging of his money,
and if you happen to be poor yourself I do not think that it helps you
to sit and listen more patiently. And then Gould was an injudicious
flatterer; he made the flattered fellow uncomfortable. It is a nice
thing, flattery, and causes one to feel good all over, if it is
delicately applied with a camel's-hair brush, as it were. But Gould
laid it on with a trowel. He only courted success; if anyone were down
he would be the first to spurn him.
Now, Crawley was undoubtedly the boy held in greatest estimation in the
school: captain and treasurer of the cricket and football clubs, good-
looking, pleasant in manners, open, generous, clever at lessons, he was
a special favourite with masters and boys, and therefore Gould burnt his
incense before him. For to be Crawley's chum was to gain a certain
amount of consideration in the school, and Gould did not mind shining
with a reflected light. He was not like Saurin in that respect, whose
egotism saved him at least from being a toad-eater. Gould was vain
enough, but his vanity was of a different kind. But hitherto all his
efforts had been in vain, and Crawley had rather snubbed him. This had
not prevented Gould from talking about him, exaggerating his merits, and
bragging about his intimacy with him at home. It was always "my friend
Crawley and I" did this, that, and the other. So that Mrs Gould wrote
to him one day asking whether he would not like his inseparable to come
and stay with him during the holidays; and Clarissa Gould added a
postscript to the effect that as he was so clever he would be of great
use to them in their private theatricals.
Crawley was one boy amongst a rather large family of girls; the father
was dead, and the mother, though able to live in ordinary comfort, was
far from rich. She could not indulge in carriages and horses, or men-
servants, for example, and she lived near London for the sake of her
daughters' education. So that Crawley had never had an opportunity of
gaining proficiency in those sports which cannot be indulged in without
a good deal of expenditure, and he looked upon hunting and shooting as
sublime delights far out of his reach at present, though perhaps he
might attain to them by working very hard, some day. His ambition was
to enter the army, not that he thought drill any particular fun, or
desired the destruction of his fellow-creatures, or ever indulged in
dreams of medals, bars, triumphal arches, and the thanks of parliament,
but simply because he might get to India, stick pigs, and shoot tigers.
Shooting! hunting! Gould's words made his nerves tingle from head to
foot with excitement. And he had thought the fellow who now offered him
a taste of such pleasures a muff, a bore, a sycophant, and done his best
to avoid him! How wrong it is to have prejudices!
"Well, then, when will you come?" asked Gould.
"As soon as it is convenient to have me after Christmas," replied
Crawley. "I must spend the Christmas week at home, you know; but then I
am free. I should tell you, though, that I cannot shoot or ride a
little bit. I have never had any practice, and you will find me an
awful duffer."
"All right; fellows always say that."
"Yes, I know they do sometimes, in mock modesty. But in my case it's a
fact, and I warn you, that I may not spoil your fun."
"My dear fellow," said Gould, "you could not do that unless your want of
skill were catching. I should be glad if I could put you up to a
wrinkle or two."
"On those terms, then, I shall be very glad to come."
"That is all right."
What a happy stroke for Gould! he had come to call Crawley "my dear
fellow" already.
The idea of his new friend putting him up to a "wrinkle or two" rather
tickled Crawley. Gould was so poor a performer at cricket, fives, lawn-
tennis, football everything which required a ready hand, a quick eye,
and firm nerves--that Crawley could not imagine his beating him even
with the advantage of previous knowledge. Yet he had not exaggerated
his own deficiencies. Bring his gun, indeed! The only gun he had to
bring was a single-barrelled muzzle-loader which had belonged to his
father. With this he had shot water-rats, sparrows, and, on one
occasion when they were very numerous, fieldfares; but not flying--he
had never attempted that. No; he had stalked his small bird till he got
within thirty yards of the bough where it was perched, and taken a
steady pot-shot. As for riding, when a very little boy during his
father's lifetime he had had a pony; and two or three times since, when
staying at watering-places in the summer, he had mounted a hired hack.
So that his ideas of sport were gathered entirely from books and
pictures, to which, when they treated of that subject, he was devotedly
attached. What happy hours he had spent poring over _Jorrock's Hunts,
Mr Sponge's Sporting Tour_, and the works of the _Old Shekarry_! When
he went to a picture-gallery he was listless until he came upon some
representation of moving adventure by flood or field, and then the rest
of the party could hardly drag him away. He had a little collection of
coloured prints in his room at home, gathered at various times, and
highly esteemed by him, which conveyed a somewhat exaggerated idea of
equine powers. For in one a horse was clearing a stream about the width
of the Thames at Reading, and in another an animal of probably the same
breed was flying a solid stone wall quite ten feet high. Now he was to
have a little taste of these often-dreamed-of joys, and the idea
absorbed his thoughts and made him restless at night.
To do him justice, he did not think about it on first meeting his mother
and sisters when he went home; but on the second day of his return the
invitation and all it promised came back to him, and he broached the
matter to Mrs Crawley at breakfast-time. "Please, Mother, I have had
an invitation to spend a week with a school-fellow after Christmas."
"Oh, and who is he?" asked Mrs Crawley.
"A chap named Gould; they are awfully rich people--just the sort I ought
to know, you know. They live in Suffolk at a place called Nugget
Towers."
"And what sort of boy is he? Because, of course, Vincent, we must ask
him here in the summer in return."
"Well, he is always very civil to me, and I don't know any harm of him;
but he is not good at games and that, and not much fun to talk to--so I
have never been quite so thick with him as he wished. That makes it all
the more civil of him. He must have talked about me at home, for his
mother sent the invitation."
"Well, Vincent, I am glad you spoke of it at once, for we must make
haste to look over your linen, which generally comes home in a terrible
state. You had better go to-day to the tailor and get measured for your
dress clothes; but you were to have had them for Christmas any way, so
that will be nothing extra."
For Crawley, it must be mentioned, had arrived at an age and height when
a tail-coat was a necessary garment if he went anywhere of an evening.
"No, Mother," he said, "except a pair of porpoise-hide boots and some
leggings; and could I have a gun, do you think? There will be some
shooting, you know."
"A gun, Vincent! Will not the one you have already do?"
"Oh, no, Mother--it is so old and out of date, I should be laughed at.
I might just as well take an arquebus or a crossbow."
"Is not a gun a very expensive thing?"
"Why, you may make it so, of course; but I don't want that. I have been
studying the _Field_, and I can get a good central-fire breech-loader
for £10."
"Ten pounds is a good deal," said Mrs Crawley thoughtfully; "but I
suppose you must have a gun if you want one. Only remember, Vincent,
that I am not rich, and your education and other expenses are very
heavy. And there are your sisters to be thought of--what with their
dresses and their music, drawing and dancing, I have to be very
careful."
"Oh, of course, Mother," said Crawley, going round and kissing her;
"what a dear you are!"
And his heart smote him as he thought of certain "ticks" he owed at
school, and had not yet had the courage to confess to. For Vincent
Crawley, though he had many good qualities, was by no means perfect. He
was rather spoiled by indulgence at home and popularity at school, and
thought a good deal too much of himself for one thing, and for another
he was inclined to be thoughtless and extravagant in money matters. It
is excellent to be generous with money which is absolutely our own; but
to seek to get the credit for generosity at other people's expense is
quite another, and not at all an admirable thing. Crawley knew this in
theory, but practically, if he wanted anything and could get it, he had
it; and if a friend had a longing for ices, strawberry mess, oyster-
patties, or any other school luxury, he would treat him, running up a
score if he had not the cash in his pocket to pay with. And if there
was generosity in this impulse, I fear that there was ostentation too.
It added to his popularity, and popularity had become as the air he
breathed. _For the only real test of generosity is self-denial_. If
you go without something you really want in order to oblige someone
else, that is genuine, admirable, and somewhat rare. But if you have
everything you want and forego nothing whatever by conferring a favour,
you may show good nature, careless indifference to the value of money,
or a pleasant sense of patronage, but not necessarily true generosity.
That _may_ be the spirit which dictates your conduct, but the act does
not prove it.
Now, in Crawley's case, his mother was the only one who had to exercise
self-denial. But he never thought of that. He prided himself on being
a very generous fellow, and so he was by nature, but not so much so as
he took credit for, and he was growing more selfish than otherwise;
which was a pity. He went up to London, and was measured for his dress
clothes, and got his boots and gaiters, and then sought out and found
the gun-shop, mentioned in the _Field_, and instead of pretending to be
knowing about firearms, wisely told the shopman why he came to him, and
that he trusted him entirely, being quite unable to judge for himself,
which made the man take particular pains to select him a good one, and
show him how to judge if the stock suited him; namely, by fixing his
eyes on an object, and bringing the gun sharply up to his shoulder.
Then closing the left eye, and looking along the barrel with the right,
to see whether the sight was on the object. If he had to raise or lower
the muzzle to obtain that result, it was obvious that it did not come up
right for him. At length he got one which suited him exactly, and he
was shown the mechanism by which the breeches were opened and closed,
and learned how to take it to pieces, put it together again, clean it,
and oil it.
Finally he bought it, together with a hundred cartridges, fifty being
loaded with snipe-shot, and fifty with number five; all on the
gunmaker's recommendation, to whom he explained the kind of shooting he
expected to have. He would not let it be sent home for him, but took it
off himself.
"You only hold it straight, sir, and I'll guarantee the gun will kill
well enough," said the maker as he left.
What a charm there is in a new bat, a new gun, a new fly-rod, a new
racket; how one longs for an opportunity to try it! Really it is often
a consolation to me to think that very rich people lose all that. When
everything is so easily obtained, nothing is of any value. Crawley at
any rate was delighted with his new possession. He took it to pieces
and put it together again for the benefit of every member of the family,
besides a good many times for his own private delectation, and practised
aiming drill and position drill by the hour together, without knowing
that there were any such military exercises.
The frost set in again, however, a week before Christmas, and when the
ice bore, he had to leave his new toy alone, for besides practising
himself, his sisters required tuition in the art of skating. And you
must not think that he found the time hang heavy to the day of his
departure; he was too fresh home, and of too genial a disposition for
that, besides which it was Christmas time. But he did look forward with
pleasurable excitement to his visit, for all that.
The day came at length, and he started for Barnsbury, snugly ensconsed
in a first-class carriage, with wraps, and comic papers, and a story by
Manville Fenn with a thrilling picture on the cover, and his beloved gun
in the rack over his head. His mother had suggested travelling second-
class, but he durst not, for fear someone should meet him at the
station. He was right in that expectation, for when the train stopped
at Barnsbury he saw Gould and a man in livery waiting for him on the
platform.
"All right! how are you, old fellow?" said Gould, shaking him by the
hand. "How good of you to come! No hunting in such a frost as this, so
I thought I would drive over myself."
Crawley said something civil, and the groom touched his hat and asked
what luggage he had, taking his gun-case from him as he spoke.
"It will be brought after us in the tax-cart," said Gould, "which has
come over too. I hate a lot of luggage in the trap I am driving, don't
you? Leave it to William and come along; it will be all right;" and he
led the way out of the station, where there was a dog-cart with another
liveried servant on the seat, and a handsome nag in the shafts, waiting
at the door.
The man jumped down and touched his hat; Crawley got in; Gould gathered
up the reins, sat beside him, and started, the man springing up behind
as they moved off, and balancing himself, with folded arms, as smart and
natty as you please.
Crawley wondered more and more that he had never perceived any
superiority in Gould; surely he must be very blind.
"It is only half-an-hour's drive, behind an animal like this," said his
new friend. "The frost is giving, so we may have a run with the
harriers in a few days. In the meantime there are a good many snipe.
We will have a crack at them to-morrow morning, if you like."
"I should like very much," replied Crawley.
The country they were driving through was not very picturesque, as it
wanted wood, a strange want for Suffolk; but they soon came to a lodge
with a gate, opened for them by a curtseying woman, and admitting them
to a park where there were trees, and fine ones, though standing about
by themselves, not grouped together. They spun along through this up to
a large white house with a colonnade in front, and a terrace, with urns
for flowers and statues all along it, looking bare and cheerless enough
at this time of year. But the hall made amends when they entered it,
for it was warm, luxurious, and bright enough for a sitting-room. Two
footmen in plush and with slightly powdered hair inhabited it, and one
of them helped Crawley to get rid of his wraps, and then Gould led the
way to the drawing-room, where Mrs Gould and three daughters were
drinking tea and eating muffins and things, for fear they should have
too good appetites for dinner, I suppose, and introduced him.
Crawley shook several hands and accepted a cup of tea, and sat down on a
very low and very soft seat, which he could have passed the night in
luxuriously if beds had run short, and felt as awkward as you please.
He always was shy in ladies' society. Not in that of his sisters, of
course; he patronised them and made them fag for him. It was certainly
their own fault if they did not like it, for they had taught him. But
they did like it, he being one of his sort, and not often at home, and
in return he waltzed with them, which was a bore, and gave them easy
service at lawn-tennis, which made him slow, and was generally an
amiable young Turk.
But the Misses Gould did not look like being fagged, rather the reverse.
They were all grown up, at least to look at, though one was not yet
"out." Clarissa, the next, a girl of eighteen, came and sat down by him
and talked to him, for which he felt very grateful, for he was beginning
to wish the floor to open and let him through. At first, indeed, she
talked of things he knew nothing about: balls, and levees, and the four-
in-hand club, and the Orleans. But finding the service was too severe,
and he could not send the ball back, she asked if he was fond of the
theatre, and as he was, very, and had been to one a few nights before,
he became more like himself, and showed some animation in his
description of the piece he had seen, and the performers.
At this juncture a quiet-looking man out of livery came softly into the
room, and asked him deferentially for his keys, as his luggage had
arrived. Seizing the idea that he proposed to unpack for him, an
operation he disliked, he gladly gave them up, wondering whether these
rich people ever did anything for themselves at all.
"I see that you are great upon acting," said Miss Clarissa when the
valet was gone, "and I am so glad! For we are getting up some private
theatricals; you will take a part?"
"Why," said Crawley in some dismay, "I never yet tried to act myself; I
am afraid I should spoil everything."
"Oh no! we have heard all about you from my brother, you know; you have
a good memory, have you not?"
"I believe so; I have never found much difficulty in learning by heart."
"That is one good thing to begin with; we will soon see if you can act
at all. Some of our friends are coming over to-morrow for rehearsal.
We have agreed to try _St. Cupid, or Dorothy's Fortune_, and we want a
`Bellefleur.' You will take the part, will you not? I am to be
`Dorothy Budd.' You will not have so very much to do. Do you know the
play?"
"No, unfortunately, and I--" Crawley began, meaning to back out; but
Miss Clarissa cut him short.
"No matter," she said, "I will fetch you a copy," and she got up and
returned presently with a little book. "You had better read it all
through, and mark your parts with the tags. The tags, you know, are the
last sentences of the speaker before you, to which you have to reply.
You can learn some while you are dressing for dinner; that is a capital
time. And I will give you a hint or two this evening in the billiard-
room. You don't mind?"
What could Crawley say? He _did_ mind, not bargaining for learning
lessons in the holidays; but he could not show himself so uncivil a boor
as to refuse. So he promised to do his best, and when the gong sounded,
took his little book up into the bedroom with him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
CRAWLEY IS TAKEN DOWN THREE PEGS.