the pitch. After the wicket had been described by experts in hushed
whispers as looking pretty good, the bell rang, and all who were not
playing for the team, with the exception of the lucky individual who
had obtained for himself the post of scorer, strolled back towards the
blocks. Monk had come out with Waterford, but seeing Farnie ahead and
walking alone he quitted Waterford, and attached himself to the genial
Reginald. He wanted to talk business. He had not found the speculation
of the two pounds a very profitable one. He had advanced the money
under the impression that Farnie, by accepting it, was practically
selling his independence. And there were certain matters in which Monk
was largely interested, connected with the breaking of bounds and the
purchase of contraband goods, which he would have been exceedingly glad
to have performed by deputy. He had fancied that Farnie would have
taken over these jobs as part of his debt. But he had mistaken his man.
On the very first occasion when he had attempted to put on the screw,
Farnie had flatly refused to have anything to do with what he proposed.
He said that he was not Monk's fag--a remark which had the merit of
being absolutely true.
All this, combined with a slight sinking of his own funds, induced Monk
to take steps towards recovering the loan.
'I say, Farnie, old chap.'
'Hullo!'
'I say, do you remember my lending you two quid some time ago?'
'You don't give me much chance of forgetting it,' said Farnie.
Monk smiled. He could afford to be generous towards such witticisms.
'I want it back,' he said.
'All right. You'll get it at the end of term.'
'I want it now.'
'Why?'
'Awfully hard up, old chap.'
'You aren't,' said Farnie. 'You've got three pounds twelve and sixpence
half-penny. If you will keep counting your money in public, you can't
blame a chap for knowing how much you've got.'
Monk, slightly disconcerted, changed his plan of action. He abandoned
skirmishing tactics.
'Never mind that,' he said, 'the point is that I want that four pounds.
I'm going to have it, too.'
'I know. At the end of term.'
'I'm going to have it now.'
'You can have a pound of it now.'
'Not enough.'
'I don't see how you expect me to raise any more. If I could, do you
think I should have borrowed it? You might chuck rotting for a change.'
'Now, look here, old chap,' said Monk, 'I should think you'd rather
raise that tin somehow than have it get about that you'd been playing
pills at some pub out of bounds. What?'
Farnie, for one of the few occasions on record, was shaken out of his
usual _sang-froid_. Even in his easy code of morality there had
always been one crime which was an anathema, the sort of thing no
fellow could think of doing. But it was obviously at this that Monk was
hinting.
'Good Lord, man,' he cried, 'you don't mean to say you're thinking of
sneaking? Why, the fellows would boot you round the field. You couldn't
stay in the place a week.'
'There are heaps of ways,' said Monk, 'in which a thing can get about
without anyone actually telling the beaks. At present I've not told a
soul. But, you know, if I let it out to anyone they might tell someone
else, and so on. And if everybody knows a thing, the beaks generally
get hold of it sooner or later. You'd much better let me have that four
quid, old chap.'
Farnie capitulated.
'All right,' he said, 'I'll get it somehow.'
'Thanks awfully, old chap,' said Monk, 'so long!'
In all Beckford there was only one person who was in the least degree
likely to combine the two qualities necessary for the extraction of
Farnie from his difficulties. These qualities were--in the first place
ability, in the second place willingness to advance him, free of
security, the four pounds he required. The person whom he had in his
mind was Gethryn. He had reasoned the matter out step by step during
the second half of morning school. Gethryn, though he had, as Farnie
knew, no overwhelming amount of affection for his uncle, might in a
case of great need prove blood to be thicker (as per advertisement)
than water. But, he reflected, he must represent himself as in danger
of expulsion rather than flogging. He had an uneasy idea that if the
Bishop were to discover that all he stood to get was a flogging, he
would remark with enthusiasm that, as far as he was concerned, the good
work might go on. Expulsion was different. To save a member of his
family from expulsion, he might think it worth while to pass round the
hat amongst his wealthy acquaintances. If four plutocrats with four
sovereigns were to combine, Farnie, by their united efforts, would be
saved. And he rather liked the notion of being turned into a sort of
limited liability company, like the Duke of Plaza Toro, at a pound a
share. It seemed to add a certain dignity to his position.
To Gethryn's study, therefore, he went directly school was over. If he
had reflected, he might have known that he would not have been there
while the match was going on. But his brain, fatigued with his recent
calculations, had not noted this point.
The study was empty.
Most people, on finding themselves in a strange and empty room, are
seized with a desire to explore the same, and observe from internal
evidence what manner of man is the owner. Nowhere does character come
out so clearly as in the decoration of one's private den. Many a man,
at present respected by his associates, would stand forth unmasked at
his true worth, could the world but look into his room. For there they
would see that he was so lost to every sense of shame as to cover his
books with brown paper, or deck his walls with oleographs presented
with the Christmas numbers, both of which habits argue a frame of mind
fit for murderers, stratagems, and spoils. Let no such man be trusted.
The Bishop's study, which Farnie now proceeded to inspect, was not of
this kind. It was a neat study, arranged with not a little taste. There
were photographs of teams with the College arms on their plain oak
frames, and photographs of relations in frames which tried to look, and
for the most part succeeded in looking, as if they had not cost
fourpence three farthings at a Christmas bargain sale. There were
snap-shots of various moving incidents in the careers of the Bishop and
his friends: Marriott, for example, as he appeared when carried to the
Pavilion after that sensational century against the Authentics:
Robertson of Blaker's winning the quarter mile: John Brown, Norris's
predecessor in the captaincy, and one of the four best batsmen Beckford
had ever had, batting at the nets: Norris taking a skier on the
boundary in last year's M.C.C. match: the Bishop himself going out to
bat in the Charchester match, and many more of the same sort.
All these Farnie observed with considerable interest, but as he moved
towards the book-shelf his eye was caught by an object more interesting
still. It was a cash-box, simple and unornamental, but undoubtedly a
cash-box, and as he took it up it rattled.
The key was in the lock. In a boarding House at a public school it is
not, as a general rule, absolutely necessary to keep one's valuables
always hermetically sealed. The difference between _meum_ and
_tuum_ is so very rarely confused by the occupants of such an
establishment, that one is apt to grow careless, and every now and then
accidents happen. An accident was about to happen now.
It was at first without any motive except curiosity that Farnie opened
the cash-box. He merely wished to see how much there was inside, with a
view to ascertaining what his prospects of negotiating a loan with his
relative were likely to be. When, however, he did see, other feelings
began to take the place of curiosity. He counted the money. There were
ten sovereigns, one half-sovereign, and a good deal of silver. One of
the institutions at Beckford was a mission. The School by (more or
less) voluntary contributions supported a species of home somewhere in
the wilds of Kennington. No one knew exactly what or where this home
was, but all paid their subscriptions as soon as possible in the term,
and tried to forget about it. Gethryn collected not only for
Leicester's House, but also for the Sixth Form, and was consequently,
if only by proxy, a man of large means. _Too_ large, Farnie
thought. Surely four pounds, to be paid back (probably) almost at once,
would not be missed. Why shouldn't he--
'Hullo!'
Farnie spun round. Wilson was standing in the doorway.
'Hullo, Farnie,' said he, 'what are you playing at in here?'
'What are you?' retorted Farnie politely.
'Come to fetch a book. Marriott said I might. What are you up to?'
'Oh, shut up!' said Farnie. 'Why shouldn't I come here if I like?
Matter of fact, I came to see Gethryn.'
'He isn't here,' said Wilson luminously.
'You don't mean to say you've noticed that already? You've got an eye
like a hawk, Wilson. I was just taking a look round, if you really want
to know.'
'Well, I shouldn't advise you to let Marriott catch you mucking his
study up. Seen a book called _Round the Red Lamp_? Oh, here it is.
Coming over to the field?'
'Not just yet. I want to have another look round. Don't you wait,
though.'
'Oh, all right.' And Wilson retired with his book.
Now, though Wilson at present suspected nothing, not knowing of the
existence of the cash-box, Farnie felt that when the money came to be
missed, and inquiries were made as to who had been in the study, and
when, he would recall the interview. Two courses, therefore, remained
open to him. He could leave the money altogether, or he could take it
and leave himself. In other words, run away.
In the first case there would, of course, remain the chance that he
might induce Gethryn to lend him the four pounds, but this had never
been more than a forlorn hope; and in the light of the possibilities
opened out by the cash-box, he thought no more of it. The real problem
was, should he or should he not take the money from the cash-box?
As he hesitated, the recollection of Monk's veiled threats came back to
him, and he wavered no longer. He opened the box again, took out the
contents, and dropped them into his pocket. While he was about it, he
thought he might as well take all as only a part.
Then he wrote two notes. One--to the Bishop--he placed on top of the
cash-box; the other he placed with four sovereigns on the table in
Monk's study. Finally he left the room, shut the door carefully behind
him, and went to the yard at the back of the House, where he kept his
bicycle.
The workings of the human mind, and especially of the young human mind,
are peculiar. It never occurred to Farnie that a result equally
profitable to himself, and decidedly more convenient for all
concerned--with the possible exception of Monk--might have been arrived
at if he had simply left the money in the box, and run away without it.
However, as the poet says, you can't think of everything.
[7]
THE BISHOP GOES FOR A RIDE
The M.C.C. match opened auspiciously. Norris, for the first time that
season, won the toss. Tom Brown, we read, in a similar position, 'with
the usual liberality of young hands', put his opponents in first.
Norris was not so liberal. He may have been young, but he was not so
young as that. The sun was shining on as true a wicket as was ever
prepared when he cried 'Heads', and the coin, after rolling for some
time in diminishing circles, came to a standstill with the dragon
undermost. And Norris returned to the Pavilion and informed his
gratified team that, all things considered, he rather thought that they
would bat, and he would be obliged if Baker would get on his pads and
come in first with him.
The M.C.C. men took the field--O. T. Blackwell, by the way, had shrunk
into a mere brother of the century-making A. T.--and the two School
House representatives followed them. An amateur of lengthy frame took
the ball, a man of pace, to judge from the number of slips. Norris
asked for 'two leg'. An obliging umpire informed him that he had got
two leg. The long bowler requested short slip to stand finer, swung his
arm as if to see that the machinery still worked, and dashed wildly
towards the crease. The match had begun.
There are few pleasanter or more thrilling moments in one's school
career than the first over of a big match. Pleasant, that is to say, if
you are actually looking on. To have to listen to a match being started
from the interior of a form-room is, of course, maddening. You hear the
sound of bat meeting ball, followed by distant clapping. Somebody has
scored. But who and what? It may be a four, or it may be a mere single.
More important still, it may be the other side batting after all. Some
miscreant has possibly lifted your best bowler into the road. The
suspense is awful. It ought to be a School rule that the captain of the
team should send a message round the form-rooms stating briefly and
lucidly the result of the toss. Then one would know where one was. As
it is, the entire form is dependent on the man sitting under the
window. The form-master turns to write on the blackboard. The only hope
of the form shoots up like a rocket, gazes earnestly in the direction
of the Pavilion, and falls back with a thud into his seat. 'They
haven't started yet,' he informs the rest in a stage whisper.
'Si-_lence_,' says the form-master, and the whole business must be
gone through again, with the added disadvantage that the master now has
his eye fixed coldly on the individual nearest the window, your only
link with the outer world.
Various masters have various methods under such circumstances. One more
than excellent man used to close his book and remark, 'I think we'll
make up a little party to watch this match.' And the form, gasping its
thanks, crowded to the windows. Another, the exact antithesis of this
great and good gentleman, on seeing a boy taking fitful glances through
the window, would observe acidly, 'You are at perfect liberty, Jones,
to watch the match if you care to, but if you do you will come in in
the afternoon and make up the time you waste.' And as all that could be
seen from that particular window was one of the umpires and a couple of
fieldsmen, Jones would reluctantly elect to reserve himself, and for
the present to turn his attention to Euripides again.
If you are one of the team, and watch the match from the Pavilion, you
escape these trials, but there are others. In the first few overs of a
School match, every ball looks to the spectators like taking a wicket.
The fiendish ingenuity of the slow bowler, and the lightning speed of
the fast man at the other end, make one feel positively ill. When the
first ten has gone up on the scoring-board matters begin to right
themselves. Today ten went up quickly. The fast man's first ball was
outside the off-stump and a half-volley, and Norris, whatever the state
of his nerves at the time, never forgot his forward drive. Before the
bowler had recovered his balance the ball was half-way to the ropes.
The umpire waved a large hand towards the Pavilion. The bowler looked
annoyed. And the School inside the form-rooms asked itself feverishly
what had happened, and which side it was that was applauding.
Having bowled his first ball too far up, the M.C.C. man, on the
principle of anything for a change, now put in a very short one.
Norris, a new man after that drive, steered it through the slips, and
again the umpire waved his hand.
The rest of the over was more quiet. The last ball went for four byes,
and then it was Baker's turn to face the slow man. Baker was a steady,
plodding bat. He played five balls gently to mid-on, and glanced the
sixth for a single to leg. With the fast bowler, who had not yet got
his length, he was more vigorous, and succeeded in cutting him twice
for two.
With thirty up for no wickets the School began to feel more
comfortable. But at forty-three Baker was shattered by the man of pace,
and retired with twenty to his credit. Gethryn came in next, but it was
not to be his day out with the bat.
The fast bowler, who was now bowling excellently, sent down one rather
wide of the off-stump. The Bishop made most of his runs from off balls,
and he had a go at this one. It was rising when he hit it, and it went
off his bat like a flash. In a School match it would have been a
boundary. But today there was unusual talent in the slips. The man from
Middlesex darted forward and sideways. He took the ball one-handed two
inches from the ground, and received the applause which followed the
effort with a rather bored look, as if he were saying, 'My good sirs,
_why_ make a fuss over these trifles!' The Bishop walked slowly
back to the Pavilion, feeling that his luck was out, and Pringle came
in.
A boy of Pringle's character is exactly the right person to go in in an
emergency like the present one. Two wickets had fallen in two balls,
and the fast bowler was swelling visibly with determination to do the
hat-trick. But Pringle never went in oppressed by the fear of getting
out. He had a serene and boundless confidence in himself.
The fast man tried a yorker. Pringle came down hard on it, and forced
the ball past the bowler for a single. Then he and Norris settled down
to a lengthy stand.
'I do like seeing Pringle bat,' said Gosling. 'He always gives you the
idea that he's doing you a personal favour by knocking your bowling
about. Oh, well hit!'
Pringle had cut a full-pitch from the slow bowler to the ropes.
Marriott, who had been silent and apparently in pain for some minutes,
now gave out the following homemade effort:
A dashing young sportsman named Pringle,
On breaking his duck (with a single),
Observed with a smile,
'Just notice my style,
How science with vigour I mingle.'
'Little thing of my own,' he added, quoting England's greatest
librettist. 'I call it "Heart Foam". I shall not publish it. Oh, run it
out!'
Both Pringle and Norris were evidently in form. Norris was now not far
from his fifty, and Pringle looked as if he might make anything. The
century went up, and a run later Norris off-drove the slow bowler's
successor for three, reaching his fifty by the stroke.
'Must be fairly warm work fielding today,' said Reece.
'By Jove!' said Gethryn, 'I forgot. I left my white hat in the House.
Any of you chaps like to fetch it?'
There were no offers. Gethryn got up.
'Marriott, you slacker, come over to the House.'
'My good sir, I'm in next. Why don't you wait till the fellows come out
of school and send a kid for it?'
'He probably wouldn't know where to find it. I don't know where it is
myself. No, I shall go, but there's no need to fag about it yet. Hullo!
Norris is out.'
Norris had stopped a straight one with his leg. He had made fifty-one
in his best manner, and the School, leaving the form-rooms at the exact
moment when the fatal ball was being bowled, were just in time to
applaud him and realize what they had missed.
Gethryn's desire for his hat was not so pressing as to make him deprive
himself of the pleasure of seeing Marriott at the wickets. Marriott
ought to do something special today. Unfortunately, after he had played
out one over and hit two fours off it, the luncheon interval began.
It was, therefore, not for half an hour that the Bishop went at last in
search of the missing headgear. As luck would have it, the hat was on
the table, so that whatever chance he might have had of overlooking the
note which his uncle had left for him on the empty cash-box
disappeared. The two things caught his eye simultaneously. He opened
the note and read it. It is not necessary to transcribe the note in
detail. It was no masterpiece of literary skill. But it had this merit,
that it was not vague. Reading it, one grasped its meaning
immediately.
The Bishop's first feeling was that the bottom had dropped out of
everything suddenly. Surprise was not the word. It was the arrival of
the absolutely unexpected.
Then he began to consider the position.
Farnie must be brought back. That was plain. And he must be brought
back at once, before anyone could get to hear of what had happened.
Gethryn had the very strongest objections to his uncle, considered
purely as a human being; but the fact remained that he was his uncle,
and the Bishop had equally strong objections to any member of his
family being mixed up in a business of this description.
Having settled that point, he went on to the next. How was he to be
brought back? He could not have gone far, for he could not have been
gone much more than half an hour. Again, from his knowledge of his
uncle's character, he deduced that he had in all probability not gone
to the nearest station, Horton. At Horton one had to wait hours at a
time for a train. Farnie must have made his way--on his
bicycle--straight for the junction, Anfield, fifteen miles off by a
good road. A train left Anfield for London at three-thirty. It was now
a little past two. On a bicycle he could do it easily, and get back
with his prize by about five, if he rode hard. In that case all would
be well. Only three of the School wickets had fallen, and the pitch was
playing as true as concrete. Besides, there was Pringle still in at one
end, well set, and surely Marriott and Jennings and the rest of them
would manage to stay in till five. They couldn't help it. All they had
to do was to play forward to everything, and they must stop in. He
himself had got out, it was true, but that was simply a regrettable
accident. Not one man in a hundred would have caught that catch. No,
with luck he ought easily to be able to do the distance and get back in
time to go out with the rest of the team to field.
He ran downstairs and out of the House. On his way to the bicycle-shed
he stopped, and looked towards the field, part of which could be seen
from where he stood. The match had begun again. The fast bowler was
just commencing his run. He saw him tear up to the crease and deliver
the ball. What happened then he could not see, owing to the trees which
stood between him and the School grounds. But he heard the crack of
ball meeting bat, and a great howl of applause went up from the
invisible audience. A boundary, apparently. Yes, there was the umpire
signalling it. Evidently a long stand was going to be made. He would
have oceans of time for his ride. Norris wouldn't dream of declaring
the innings closed before five o'clock at the earliest, and no bowler
could take seven wickets in the time on such a pitch. He hauled his
bicycle from the shed, and rode off at racing speed in the direction of
Anfield.
[8]
THE M.C.C. MATCH
But out in the field things were going badly with Beckford. The aspect
of a game often changes considerably after lunch. For a while it looked
as if Marriott and Pringle were in for their respective centuries. But
Marriott was never a safe batsman.
A hundred and fifty went up on the board off a square leg hit for two,
which completed Pringle's half-century, and then Marriott faced the
slow bowler, who had been put on again after lunch. The first ball was
a miss-hit. It went behind point for a couple. The next he got fairly
hold of and drove to the boundary. The third was a very simple-looking
ball. Its sole merit appeared to be the fact that it was straight. Also
it was a trifle shorter than it looked. Marriott jumped out, and got
too much under it. Up it soared, straight over the bowler's head. A
trifle more weight behind the hit, and it would have cleared the ropes.
As it was, the man in the deep-field never looked like missing it. The
batsmen had time to cross over before the ball arrived, but they did it
without enthusiasm. The run was not likely to count. Nor did it.
Deep-field caught it like a bird. Marriott had made twenty-two.
And now occurred one of those rots which so often happen without any
ostensible cause in the best regulated school elevens. Pringle played
the three remaining balls of the over without mishap, but when it was
the fast man's turn to bowl to Bruce, Marriott's successor, things
began to happen. Bruce, temporarily insane, perhaps through
nervousness, played back at a half-volley, and was clean bowled. Hill
came in, and was caught two balls later at the wicket. And the last
ball of the over sent Jennings's off-stump out of the ground, after
that batsman had scored two.
'I can always bowl like blazes after lunch,' said the fast man to
Pringle. 'It's the lobster salad that does it, I think.' Four for a
hundred and fifty-seven had changed to seven for a hundred and
fifty-nine in the course of a single over. Gethryn's calculations, if
he had only known, could have done now with a little revision.