was not hurt, and expressed an opinion that he would learn to ride in
time, and was glad they had only gone out with the jelly dogs instead of
the foxhounds, or his friend and guest would not have seen anything of
the run. All which was trying, coming from a fellow who had looked upon
him as an oracle, and to whom he had condescended. At dinner, too, he
was chaffed a little; but the hardest rider in the county, who had
condescended to go out with the harriers to try a new horse, the
foxhounds not meeting that day, and who was dining with Mr Gould
afterwards, came to his rescue. "Never mind them, lad," he said; "you
went as straight as a die. I saw you taking everything as it came,
never looking for a gap or a gate, and it is not many of them can say
the same."
This was Saturday, and Crawley was glad of a day of rest when he got up
next morning, he was so stiff. On Monday preparations for the private
theatricals began in earnest. Dresses came down from London, and were
tried on and altered; the large drawing-room was given up to the hands
of workmen, who fitted up a small stage at one end of it, with sloping
seats in front, that all the guests might see. Those who were to act
were always going into corners and getting some one to hear them their
parts, and there were rehearsals. It was all a great bore to Crawley,
who would fain have spent the time in shooting or riding, of which he
got but little, so exacting was Miss Clarissa; and he was to go home on
the Thursday, the day after the entertainment.
As the time approached, too, he felt more and more uncomfortable; he had
found out from young Gould that the whole thing had been got up by his
sister Clarissa, who thought herself a very good actress, and wished to
show off; and he could easily see that he would not have been asked to
the house at all, if it had not been for his school-fellow's talk, about
what a clever individual he was--able to do everything. Now, next to
Sir Valentine May, no character in the comedy is so important for the
display of Dorothy Budd's (Clarissa's) performance as Ensign Bellefleur;
and the more clearly Crawley saw this, the more fervently did he wish
that he was out of it. It was too late now, however, and as he got on
very fairly in the rehearsals, he began to hope he should pull through
somehow.
On Tuesday the house was filled with company, and he was asked to give
up his room and go to the top of the house, which, however, was no
trouble to him. His clothes of seventeen hundred and fifteen were
though, when the eventful evening came, and his wig, and the man who
fitted it and daubed his face. And yet, when all the fidgeting was
over, he wished that it had to begin again, that he might have a further
respite.
The play began, and during the first scene he stood at the side envying
the cool self-possession of Captain Wingfield, who had the part of
"Valentine," and every one of whose speeches was followed by laughter
from the unseen audience. When the second scene opened Miss Clarissa
joined him, looking charming in her old-world dress; they were to go on
in company, and he made a strenuous effort to pull himself together.
But when he found himself in the full glare of the foot-lights, and
looking before him saw the mass of expectant faces which rose, rank
behind rank, half-way to the ceiling, his head went round, his brain
became confused, and his first sentence was inaudible. "Speak up!" said
Miss Clarissa in a loud whisper, and he uttered, "And have you no
ambition?" in a louder key indeed, but in trembling accents, and
standing more like a boy saying a lesson.
The audience cannot hiss in private theatricals, but they could not help
a suppressed titter, which confused Crawley still more. He forgot what
he had to say, and looked appealingly to the prompter, who prompted
rather too loudly. Altogether the scene was spoilt, and Clarissa
furious.
He did a little better in the second act, but not one quarter so well as
he had in rehearsals, and was ready to punch his own head with vexation
when the whole thing was over, and he had got rid of his costume and the
messes on his face.
He went to bed instead of to supper, and next morning at breakfast no
one alluded to the performance before him. Soon afterwards he took his
leave of all but Miss Clarissa, who kept out of his way, and Lionel
Gould drove him to the station very sulkily, for his sister had vented
her displeasure upon him. And so they said an uncomfortable good-bye,
and Crawley felt much relieved when he found himself alone in the train,
with the humiliations of his visit behind him. They did not do him any
harm, quite the contrary; he was made of better stuff than that. Of
course he felt sore at his failures, when he was used to play first
fiddle. When the devil of conceit is cast out of us the throes are
severe. But by the time he got home Crawley was able to laugh at his
own mishaps. Perhaps Gould got the worst of it after all. "_That_
friend of yours an Admirable Crichton!" said his sister. "A fine set
you must be!"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
THE DESCENT OF AVERNUS.
A worse resident than Mr Wobbler the pedestrian took up his abode at
Slam's, and this was no other than his son, Josiah Slam, who had gone to
London as the only field wide enough for his talents ten years before,
and had only been occasionally heard of since. Now, however, he thought
fit to pay his parents a visit, and did not appear to be in prosperous
circumstances, though it is probable that he had money, or money's
worth, or the prospect of it, for Slam was not the man to kill the
fatted calf for a prodigal son, unless he saw the way to making a good
profit out of the veal, the hoofs, and the skin.
Josiah was a young man of varied accomplishments, all of which were
practised for the purpose of transferring other people's cash from their
pockets to his own. He called himself a sportsman, and no doubt the
operation alluded to was sport, to him. Arriving about Christmas time,
when holiday making was general, he gleaned a little at the game of
skittles, at which many of the agriculturists round about thought they
were somewhat proficient; but cunning as he was he could not go on
disguising his game for ever, and so directly he saw that the yokels
were growing shy of playing with him, he gave it up. The Sunday pitch-
and-toss and card assemblages were also a source of profit to him.
Marriner thought he could cheat, and had indeed stolen money in that way
from his companions, and there was nothing Josiah Slam liked better than
dealing with a weaker member of his own fraternity. He allowed Marriner
to cheat him a little, and pretended not to discover it; played at being
vexed; drew him on, and fleeced him of his ill-gotten gains.
But it was apparent that he played too well at these amusements also, so
then he showed them a game at which everybody might win, except himself.
Where it was all chance, and skill could not interfere. Roulette, in
short. The room in which Professor Wobbler had given his boxing lessons
had a table fitted up in it, and on this table the wheel-of-fortune,
with its black and red compartments, and its little ivory ball to rattle
round and finally fall into one of them, was placed, with a cloth marked
in compartments answering to those in the wheel for the gamblers to
stake their money upon. This game proved very fascinating to the
dissipated amongst the farmers' sons round about, and to some of the
farmers too, and money which ought to have gone to buy stock, or for the
rent, was lost at that table. Of course some of them won occasionally,
and considerable sums, for them, too; that formed the fascination of it.
But the agricultural interest was depressed, and ready money not
forthcoming to the extent Josiah Slam desired; so upper servants of the
neighbouring gentry were admitted, under strong vows of secrecy, and
more than one gamekeeper's and huntsman's family was short of coals and
meat that winter, because the money to provide such necessaries was left
on that satanic, innocent-looking table. Every night this gambling went
on, and Josiah made a good deal of money by it, being prepared, however,
to clear out of the neighbourhood at the first symptom of the police
having caught scent of the affair.
Ready money was waning and business growing slack when the Weston boys
came back from the Christmas holidays, and Josiah, who knew that some of
them frequented his father's yard, saw a fine opportunity of augmenting
his gains by setting his little ball rolling in the daytime for their
especial benefit. The scheme was nearly stifled by its own success; on
the very first occasion a boy won four pounds, and could not conceal the
triumphant fact from two or three intimate friends, who each whispered
it to two or three others, and the consequence was that on the next
Saturday afternoon no fewer than thirty Westonians came to Slam's yard
seeking admittance. This alarmed old Slam, who saw a speedy prospect of
discovery, and of that hold upon him which the authorities had long been
seeking, being afforded them, to the consequent break up of his
establishment. Better small safe profits which should last, he thought,
than a haul, which after all must be limited to the amount of the
school-boys' pocket-money, and be shared with his son, and the stoppage
of all his little sources of profit. Not to mention the prospect of
legal punishment. So the thirty had to go away again grumbling, with
their money in their pockets. _O fortunati, si sua bona norint_.
But small parties of the initiated were still admitted, amongst them, of
course, Saurin and his shadow, Edwards. The latter, who, as was said in
a former chapter, had a peculiar fondness for games of chance, was
positively infatuated with this device of young Slam's. It interfered
with his studies by day, and he dreamed of it by night, so much did it
engross his thoughts. He was never easy unless staking his shillings on
that table, and watching eagerly whether the little ball would drop into
a red hole or a black one. Saurin did not take half the interest in it
at first, the principal attraction for him lying in the illegality, and
the tampering with what he had heard and read of as having been the ruin
of so many thousands. And he thought what fools they must be. There
were many ways in which he could well imagine anyone spending his last
penny, but not over a toy like this. But one day he came away a winner
of a couple of sovereigns, and there was something in seeing the
shillings and half-crowns gathering into a pile before him which caused
him to catch the sordid fever with which his friend was infected.
Hitherto he had made his stakes carelessly, but now he took a deeper
interest in the thing. Sometimes he had won a few shillings and Edwards
had lost, and at other times it went the other way, but the winner's
gains were never so great as the loser's losses, and it was evident that
the difference must remain with the conductor of the game, Josiah Slam.
"Why, we have been practically playing against each other for that
rogue's benefit!" exclaimed Saurin, when he made this discovery. "In
future we must always stake our money the same way." And this they did.
Then Saurin had another bright idea. It was an even chance each time
whether red or black won, just the same as heads or tails in tossing, so
it could not go on very long being one or the other in succession.
Then, supposing they staked on red, and it turned up black several
times, they had only to persevere with red and increase the stake and
they must win their losses back, while if it was red several times they
would have a clear gain.
This appeared to Edwards as a stroke of genius, and he was in a state of
fever till they had an opportunity of putting it in practice. And it
answered at first; but presently one colour, the wrong one, won so many
times running that all their united capital went into Josiah's bank.
They looked at one another in blank dismay; there was an end to their
speculations for the rest of that term, and by the next Mr Slam junior
would have decamped from the paternal abode, for when the racing season
commenced he flew at far higher game than the purses of rustics and
school-boys.
"Can't come no more, can't yer?" said Josiah. "I'm sorry for that,
though I expect I should be a loser, for you play well and knows a thing
or two, you do. But it's the sport I care for more than the money, and
I should have liked yer to have another chance. I know what I did once
when I were in that fix; I just took and pawned my watch, and with the
money I got on it I won back all I'd lost and more on the back of it, in
a brace of shakes, and then took the ticker out again all comfortable."
"But there is no pawnbroker near here."
"No, in course not, and such a thing might not suit gents like you
neither. Not but lords and markisses does it often; and if ever you
really did want a pound or two very bad, for a short time, there's my
father, as goes over to Cornchester perpetually, would pop anything
light and small for yer, and bring yer back the money and ticket safe
enough."
The hint took; old Slam was intrusted with Edwards' watch that evening,
and shortly afterwards with Saurin's; and later on with all the pins and
rings they possessed, though these were not worth much.
This may all sound accountable in Edwards, who was so weak and soft; but
Saurin, though vicious, was no fool, and such excessively absurd conduct
may appear to you inconsistent with his character. But that is because
you do not know the rapidly enervating and at the same time fascinating
mastery which gambling has on the mind of one who gives way to it. It
is a sort of demoniacal possession; the kind-hearted, amiable man
becomes hard and selfish, the generous man mean and grasping, the
strong-minded superstitious under its influence. It may seem strange to
enact laws to prevent people from risking their own money if they
choose, but every civilised government has found it absolutely necessary
to do so. For the losing gamester always thinks that with a little more
money to risk he would certainly win all back again, and the thought
maddens him so that he will not even shrink from crime to obtain it.
One day when the pair were penniless, and had no more means of raising
money, young Slam generously offered them a loan, only requiring them to
sign a paper acknowledging the transaction. To prevent their feeling
themselves placed under an obligation he delicately allowed them to sign
for more than they had received a proposition which Saurin acceded to
with alacrity. Edwards, though he also signed, did so with hesitation,
and expressed fears about the safety of the transaction afterwards.
"Pooh!" said Saurin, "the I O U is mere waste paper; we are both under
age, and can snap our fingers at him if he demands payment. Besides, we
will pay him back the first time we win enough."
"But supposing we don't win enough? we have been very unlucky lately,"
objected Edwards.
"All the more reason why luck should change," replied Saurin. "But
suppose it does not, all the money will have gone into the fellow's
pocket, so we shall have repaid him in reality, don't you see?"
Edwards didn't quite. If you borrow a shilling of any one to gamble
with, and lose the stake and pay him with the shilling you have borrowed
from him, he does not exactly get what is due to him. However, Edwards
made no reply; no doubt Saurin knew best.
Crawley lost a little of the estimation in which he had been held that
term. It was extremely mean of Gould to gossip about his guest's
discomfitures at Nugget Towers, but the temptation to glorify himself at
the other's expense was too strong. He had plenty of pocket-money
always, and rich men or rich boys are sure to have some one to listen to
them with a certain amount of deference, and if Gould was not popular
exactly, his hampers were.
"I had Crawley to stay with me at Christmas, you know," he said. "He's
a good fellow; pity he's so awfully poor. He had never been in a decent
house before, and was awfully astonished. He had what they call `the
keeper's gun,' a ten-pound thing; our head-keeper twigged it. Good gun
enough, I daresay, but not what a gentleman has for himself. But he
could not use it; worst shot I ever met, by Jove! I showed him a thing
or two, and he began to improve by my hints. He is not above taking
hints, I will say that for him; and his riding! Why, I thought from
those prints in his room that he was ever such a swell; but I don't
believe he was ever outside a horse before. Even the ploughmen laughed
at him. `Get inside and pull up the windows!' they called out."
And so he went on, somewhat exaggerating all Crawley's failures, not so
much out of any ill-will as for self-glorification. You may know the
pastime of boring a hole through a chestnut, threading it on a string,
and fighting it against other chestnuts: if you hit on a very tough
chestnut, and with it broke another one, it is, or used to be the rule
that your chestnut counted all the victories of the one it split in
addition to its own, of which a careful account was kept. So that if a
chestnut was a fiver, and it beat a tenner, it became at one leap a
fifteener. In something the same way Gould had an idea he might score
by Crawley, who was thought so much of for his proficiency in many
things. If he himself was so much richer, such a better rider and shot,
it ought to be assumed that if he took the trouble he could also beat
him at cricket, football, mathematics, German, and freehand drawing. It
was not very logical, and indeed he did not put the matter to himself so
nakedly as that, but that was the sort of idea which influenced him
nevertheless.
At the same time I fear that there may have been a little spite in his
feelings too; he had been a good deal snubbed by his sister Clarissa for
introducing a friend who had gone far to spoil her triumph in the play
she had got up with such pains and forethought, and he much regretted
having ever asked him. Gould's bragging would not have been much
believed, only Crawley confirmed it. "Yes," he said, "I went to stay
with Gould's people; very kind of them to ask me. They live in grand
style; I thought I had got to Windsor Castle by mistake at first. I
should have enjoyed it immensely if they had not made me act in private
theatricals, which I hate, and I am afraid I came to utter grief over
it. Took me out snipe-shooting; did you ever shoot at a snipe? bad bird
to hit; Gould got some. I suppose one would pick up the knack of it in
time. And, yes, we went out with the harriers; I had never sat a horse
when he jumped anything before, and I came a couple of croppers. But it
was great fun, and I did not hurt myself. Gould did not get a fall, oh
no; he is used to it."
A good many were rather disgusted with Gould when he talked in the way
he did, and Buller let him see it. "It's awfully bad form to ask a
fellow to your house, and then boast that he can't do things that he
never tried before, so well as you can," he blurted out.
"Oh, of course, we and know that Crawley is perfect in _your_ eyes,"
sneered Gould.
"That's rot," said Buller elegantly; "but I do know this, that you might
have practised anything you know, shooting, riding, anything, all your
life, and if Crawley had a week's practice he would beat your head off
at it; come, then, I'll bet you what you like."
"That is impossible to prove."
"No matter, it does not need proof; every fellow with eyes in his head
must see it. But that's nothing. If you were ever so much better it
would be just as mean to brag about it."
Crawley had no idea that Gould bore him any grudge, and being grateful
to him for his invitation, sought to give him those opportunities of
intimacy which he had evidently coveted before. But it was Gould now
who drew back, somewhat to the other's relief, for he could not bring
himself to care much about him.
Well, all this foolish talk of Gould's did have a certain effect: a good
many boys lost some faith in their idol, and began to suspect that its
feet might be of clay. And then Crawley took to reading very hard that
term, for his time for trying to get into Woolwich was approaching, and
he was very anxious not to fail; and this made him less sociable, which
affected his popularity. It did not interfere with his sports; he was
as energetic at football as ever, and took his usual pains to make the
boys pay up their subscriptions, for he was secretary and treasurer.
But that was not exactly a genial duty, though everybody was glad that
somebody else would take the trouble. And for the rest, he was now
always working hard or playing hard.
"Hulloa, Edwards!" he said one day about the middle of term, "you have
been very lazy about your football lately; you promised to be good at
it, you know. It's a pity to give it up."
"But I have not," said Edwards. "I am going in for it again now." And
he meant it; for the last penny of the loan had vanished, and he felt
the need of excitement and action of some kind.
"That's right, old fellow," said Crawley. "Of course you play for your
house against ours in the match."
"I believe so."
"Come and have a game this afternoon," said Crawley, turning back after
they had parted; for the pallid and careworn face of the other struck
him, and he thought very likely a little exercise and bustle was just
what he wanted, but that he felt listless, as one does sometimes, when
one is glad afterwards if some one else will save us the trouble of
making up our minds, and start us.
"No, thanks," replied Edwards, "I can't come to-day, I have something
else I must do. But I shall practise regularly after to-day." And he
went on his way to meet Saurin, and go with him to Slam's yard.
For a crisis had arrived in their affairs which assumed a most serious
aspect. It was no longer a question of obtaining the means of
continuing their gambling; they had awakened from that dream, and saw
what dupes they had been. And indeed the Slams, father and son, found
that their little game was being talked about in the neighbourhood too
freely for safety, and had abruptly discontinued it. Josiah, indeed,
was about to take his departure altogether, and in announcing that
intention to Saurin and Edwards, demanded immediate payment of the money
he had advanced them, in consideration of which they had jointly signed
an acknowledgment for five pounds. They had, indeed, kept away from the
yard when their money was all gone, but Josiah Slam was not to be balked
in that manner. He went over to Weston, and accosted Saurin in the
street.
"I cannot pay you just now; don't speak to me here, we shall be seen,"
said Saurin.
"What do I care for that?" replied Josiah. "If you don't come to me
I'll come to you."
"I will come to the yard to-morrow afternoon, only do go away now,"
urged Saurin.
"You had better," said the man significantly. And so Saurin and Edwards
were now on their way to the yard.
"Well, gents, have you got the money?" asked Josiah Slam, who admitted
them. "I hope so, for I wants to be off, and I'm only a-waiting for
that."
"No," replied Saurin, "we have not got it; it is not likely. We did not
sign that paper until we had lost everything to you, and we shall not
have any more till after Easter. Perhaps we may pay you then, though I
don't consider we owe you anything really. You have won it all back,
and a lot more besides."
"What's that to do with it?" cried young Slam. "You had as good a
chance of winning of me, hadn't yer?"
"No, of course not," replied Saurin. "I am not certain that we had any
chance at all."
"What d'yer mean? yer--"
"Oh, don't bluster and try to bully," said Saurin. "I'm not afraid of
you."
"Oh, you're not, ain't yer, my game chicken? but I have got your I O U."
"Much good may it do you! Why, we are under age, and it's of no value
at all."
"And you call yerself a gentleman! Yah! But I'm not so green as yer
think, my boy. Of course I knowed it warn't a legal dokiment. But it's
proof enough for me. If you don't pay I shall take it to yer master,
and see if he won't pay it for yer."
"Don't be a fool; you know very well he would not."
"No, I don't; at any rate I shall try it on."
"It would do you no good, I tell you."