The artfulness of Steggles properly begins here. He knew several things
we didn’t. He knew, for instance, that M. was coming to the football
match, that she was going to ride her bicycle over on the road by which
we walked, that only the day before he had quarrelled with her, and that
his position with regard to her was at that hour most risky. All these
things Steggles well knew, and we didn’t. So he lighted his pipe with an
air of long practice. The smell was fine, and he smacked his lips now
and then.
“Nice pouch?” he said, handing me a velveteen pouch with his initials on
it in green silk.
“I’ll bet a girl did that,” said Mathers.
“It’s a secret,” said Steggles, smiling to himself.
Then he asked very civily if we would care to join him, explaining that
he generally kept a few spare pipes about him for friends.
“I would if it wasn’t for the match,” said Mathers.
“So would I,” I said.
“Well, my baccy might turn you fellows up. Perhaps you are wise,”
declared Steggles, puffing away. Then he tried Nubby with a little
cherry-wood pipe, and Nubbs thought a whiff or two wouldn’t hurt him and
began rather nervously, but gathered courage as he went on.
“I heard my father say once that life without tobacco would be hell,”
said Steggles; “and I agree with him.”
“So do I; it’s very soothing,” said Nubby.
Then Mathers burst out. He had been sulking ever since Steggles hinted
that the contents of his velveteen pouch were too strong for us.
“If you think I funk your tobacco you’re wrong,” Mathers said. “I’ve
smoked three parts of a cigar before to-day.”
“A chocolate one, perhaps?” said Steggles, but in such a humble,
inquiring voice that Mathers couldn’t hit him.
“No, a tobacco one; and if you’ve got another pipe I’ll show you.”
“So will I,” I chimed in. Mathers’s lead was always good enough for me.
Steggles immediately lugged out two more pipes. He seemed to be stuffed
with them.
“Get it well alight at the start,” he explained, handing a fusee.
“All right, all right, I know,” said Mathers. Soon we were at it like
four chimneys, and Steggles praised us in such a way that we could take
no offence.
“You’ve all smoked many a time and oft, I can see that,” he said.
Mathers spat about a good deal, and fancied tobacco was probably a fine
steadier for the nerves before a football match; and Nubbs said he
thought so too; and he also thought that after a little smoking one
didn’t want to talk, but ought just to keep quiet and think of
interesting things.
“It widens the mind,” said Steggles.
We tramped on rather silently for ten minutes till Nubbs spoke again. To
our surprise his hopeful tone had changed, and we found he had turned a
sort of putty-color, with blue lips. He said:
“I’ll overtake you fellows. I think I’ve got--I’ve got a bit of a
sunstroke or something. It’ll pass off, no doubt.”
“Better not smoke any more,” said Steggles.
“It isn’t that, but I won’t, all the same. I’ll just dodge through that
hole in the hedge and find some wild strawberries or hazel-nuts, or
something.”
Seeing it was a frosty day in December Nubby’s statements looked wild.
But he went. There was a hole in the hedge, with tree-roots trailing
across it, and Nubbs crawled shakily through, like a wounded rabbit,
into a place where a board was stuck up saying that people would be
prosecuted according to law if they went there. But he didn’t seem to
care, though it wasn’t a thing he would have done in cold blood. I saw
Mathers grow uneasy in his mind.
“Wasn’t the pipe--eh?”
“No, no. This tobacco--why, a child could smoke it,” said Steggles. “You
know what Nubbs is. It’s only an excuse to turn. He hates football and
hates walking.”
We kept on again, and I began to feel a slight perspiration on my
forehead and a weird sort of feeling everywhere. I had smoked about half
the pipe.
“I sha’n’t go on with this now because of the match,” I said, hastily
knocking out the remaining tobacco and handing his loathsome little clay
back to Steggles.
“Why!” he said, “blessed if you haven’t gone the same color as Nubbs
did! Don’t say you’ve got a sunstroke too?”
There was something in the voice of Steggles I didn’t much like, but I
hardly felt equal to answering him then.
“You’re all right, anyway, aren’t you, Mathers?” he asked.
“Of course I am. What the dickens d’ you mean?”
“Nothing. Glad you like my baccy. There’s plenty of time for another
pipe.”
“No there isn’t,” said Mathers. “I very much wish there was.”
We walked on a few yards farther.
“D’ you drink that rich, brown cod-liver oil, the same as Nubby?” asked
Steggles of Mathers, suddenly. Mathers looked at him, and I knew how
things were in a moment. For a moment my own sufferings were forgotten
before the awful spectacle of the ruin of Mathers. He gave his pipe back
quietly, took great gasps of air, mopped his forehead, and rolled his
eyes about. Then he said:
“I’m not quite happy about Nubbs. You push on, and I’ll overtake you.”
“Hanged if you’re not queer too!” exclaimed Steggles. “Whoever would
have thought that Three Castles--”
“Shut up,” said Mathers, hoarsely. “It was the boi--boiled beef at
dinner.”
He spoke the words with an awful effort.
“So it was,” I said, feebly. “We never could stand it--either of us.”
“A steaming glass of hot grog is what you want,” said Steggles,
sympathetically.
“Go!” gasped Mathers, who really looked horrid now; “go! or I’ll kick
you, if it kills me to do it.”
“Blessed if you haven’t turned green, Mathers,” said Steggles. “You look
as if you’d been buried and dug up again. I don’t say it unkindly, but
it’s jolly curious.”
At the same moment ting! ting! went a bicycle bell; and there was Milly,
looking fine.
“You’ll all be late,” she said.
We prayed she would hurry on and not observe us too narrowly. Then that
beast, Steggles, made her stop.
“Look here,” he said, “it’s frightfully serious because of the
match--these poor chaps are ill--just cast your eye at the colors
they’ve gone. They worried me to let them try to smoke, and--”
“I’ll break your neck for this!” interrupted Mathers. Then he turned to
M.
“If you’re a lady, if you ever cared an atom about us, please ride on
round that corner. We’re ill--can’t you see it?”
“Yes, I can--anybody could. I’m sorry. But you won’t hurt Steggles if I
go?” said M.
“No; I promise. Say we’re on the road and shall be there in ten--ten--
Go!”
M. took the hint and rode off, with Steggles frisking beside her, like
the dog he was.
“Thank the Lord!” said Mathers. Then horrid things happened both to him
and me.
We crawled to the match more dead than alive and found a crowd waiting,
and Browne and several of the other masters. We were fully twenty
minutes late. “This is very unsportsmanlike, the days being so short
too!” Browne squeaked. Then we took off our coats and tottered into the
field of play.
Of course Buckland Grammar School won. Our side would have done a long
way better without us. I couldn’t take a pass or shoot for the life of
me--it occupied all my time wrestling with nature, let alone the
Bucklanders. And Mathers, who played back, was worse. The roughs “guyed”
him, and asked him what he’d been drinking. If they’d asked him what
he’d been smoking there might have been some sense in it. He told me
afterwards that he often saw three footballs at one time when he tried
to kick, and sometimes four, and the ball he kicked always turned out to
be an apparition. Bradwell kept goal grandly too; but it was no good
with Mathers like that, and he utterly ruined Ashby Major, the other
back.
Nubbs had gone to bed when we got back, and the matron, knowing Nubbs
had a tricky system, sent for Doctor Barnes. Nubbs, therefore, gave
himself away.
M. never looked at any of us again, and she and Steggles undoubtedly
became frightful pals; but the next term, just before Easter, I had the
pleasure of writing a fine letter to Mathers, who had left Merivale, and
was reading for six months with a private tutor before going to
Cambridge. This is part of the letter:
“Dear Mathers,” I wrote, “you will be interested to know that Browne has
come down on Steggles at last. I fancy Browne knew the Doctor was fairly
sick of Steggles and wanted to be rid of him. In fact, I heard the
Doctor call Steggles a canker-worm myself. Anyway, Browne blew up on the
smoking, and Steggles will soon probably vanish, like the dew upon the
fleece. M. cried a bit, I fancy, when she heard it, but Nubbs says she
smiled at him two mornings afterwards coming out of chapel. Nubbs
expects to crack (his voice) any day, but he hopes to get a definite
understanding with M. before it happens. It’ll be too late after. Of
course she never looks at me. She told Steggles, and he told me, that
she could not possibly care for a person she had once seen the hue of a
Liberty Art Fabric--meaning me. I scragged Steggles after he told me.
But it is all over now. I believe he is to go into his father’s
business--Steggles & Stote, Wine Merchants. M. is more beautiful than
ever, though I’m afraid she’s got a bad disposition. To reflect on a
fellow’s color at such a time as that was a bit rough.”