you've gone and got the School licked in the M.C.C. match, and that we
haven't beaten the M.C.C. for about a dozen years, and that if you'd
been there to bowl we should have walked over this time? Do try and
grasp the thing.'
'Did they win?'
'Rather. By a wicket. Two wickets, I mean. We made 213. Your bowling
would just have done it.'
Gethryn sat down.
'Oh Lord,' he said blankly, 'this is awful!'
'But, look here, Bishop,' continued Marriott, 'this is all rot. You
can't do a thing like this, and then refuse to offer any explanation,
and expect things to go on just as usual.'
'I don't,' said Gethryn. 'I know there's going to be a row, but I can't
explain. You'll have to take me on trust.'
'Oh, as far as I am concerned, it's all right,' said Marriott. 'I know
you wouldn't be ass enough to do a thing like that without a jolly good
reason. It's the other chaps I'm thinking about. You'll find it jolly
hard to put Norris off, I'm afraid. He's most awfully sick about the
match. He fielded badly, which always makes him shirty. Jephson, too.
You'll have a bad time with Jephson. His one wish after the match was
to have your gore and plenty of it. Nothing else would have pleased him
a bit. And think of the chaps in the House, too. Just consider what a
pull this gives Monk and his mob over you. The House'll want some
looking after now, I fancy.'
'And they'll get it,' said Gethryn. 'If Monk gives me any of his
beastly cheek, I'll knock his head off.'
But in spite of the consolation which such a prospect afforded him, he
did not look forward with pleasure to the next day, when he would have
to meet Norris and the rest. It would have been bad in any case. He did
not care to think what would happen when he refused to offer the
slightest explanation.
[10]
IN WHICH A CASE IS FULLY DISCUSSED
Gethryn was right in thinking that the interviews would be unpleasant.
They increased in unpleasantness in arithmetical progression, until
they culminated finally in a terrific encounter with the justly
outraged Norris.
Reece was the first person to institute inquiries, and if everybody had
resembled him, matters would not have been so bad for Gethryn. Reece
possessed a perfect genius for minding his own business. The dialogue
when they met was brief.
'Hullo,' said Reece.
'Hullo,' said the Bishop.
'Where did you get to yesterday?' said Reece.
'Oh, I had to go somewhere,' said the Bishop vaguely.
'Oh? Pity. Wasn't a bad match.' And that was all the comment Reece made
on the situation.
Gethryn went over to the chapel that morning with an empty sinking
feeling inside him. He was quite determined to offer no single word of
explanation, and he felt that that made the prospect all the worse.
There was a vast uncertainty in his mind as to what was going to
happen. Nobody could actually do anything to him, of course. It would
have been a decided relief to him if anybody had tried that line of
action, for moments occur when the only thing that can adequately
soothe the wounded spirit, is to hit straight from the shoulder at
someone. The punching-ball is often found useful under these
circumstances. As he was passing Jephson's House he nearly ran into
somebody who was coming out.
'Be firm, my moral pecker,' thought Gethryn, and braced himself up for
conflict.
'Well, Gethryn?' said Mr Jephson.
The question 'Well?' especially when addressed by a master to a boy, is
one of the few questions to which there is literally no answer. You can
look sheepish, you can look defiant, or you can look surprised
according to the state of your conscience. But anything in the way of
verbal response is impossible.
Gethryn attempted no verbal response.
'Well, Gethryn,' went on Mr Jephson, 'was it pleasant up the river
yesterday?'
Mr Jephson always preferred the rapier of sarcasm to the bludgeon of
abuse.
'Yes, sir,' said Gethryn, 'very pleasant.' He did not mean to be
massacred without a struggle.
'What!' cried Mr Jephson. 'You actually mean to say that you did go up
the river?'
'No, sir.'
'Then what do you mean?'
'It is always pleasant up the river on a fine day,' said Gethryn.
His opponent, to use a metaphor suitable to a cricket master, changed
his action. He abandoned sarcasm and condescended to direct inquiry.
'Where were you yesterday afternoon?' he said.
The Bishop, like Mr Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., became at once the
silent tomb.
'Did you hear what I said, Gethryn?' (icily). 'Where were you yesterday
afternoon?'
'I can't say, sir.'
These words may convey two meanings. They may imply ignorance, in which
case the speaker should be led gently off to the nearest asylum. Or
they may imply obstinacy. Mr Jephson decided that in the present case
obstinacy lay at the root of the matter. He became icier than ever.
'Very well, Gethryn,' he said, 'I shall report this to the Headmaster.'
And Gethryn, feeling that the conference was at an end, proceeded on
his way.
After chapel there was Norris to be handled. Norris had been rather
late for chapel that morning, and had no opportunity of speaking to the
Bishop. But after the service was over, and the School streamed out of
the building towards their respective houses, he waylaid him at the
door, and demanded an explanation. The Bishop refused to give one.
Norris, whose temper never had a chance of reaching its accustomed
tranquillity until he had consumed some breakfast--he hated early
morning chapel--raved. The Bishop was worried, but firm.
'Then you mean to say--you don't mean to say--I mean, you don't intend
to explain?' said Norris finally, working round for the twentieth time
to his original text.
'I can't explain.'
'You won't, you mean.'
'Yes. I'll apologize if you like, but I won't explain.'
Norris felt the strain was becoming too much for him.
'Apologize!' he moaned, addressing circumambient space. 'Apologize! A
man cuts off in the middle of the M.C.C. match, loses us the game, and
then comes back and offers to apologize.'
'The offer's withdrawn,' put in Gethryn. 'Apologies and explanations
are both off.' It was hopeless to try and be conciliatory under the
circumstances. They did not admit of it.
Norris glared.
'I suppose,' he said, 'you don't expect to go on playing for the First
after this? We can't keep a place open for you in the team on the off
chance of your not having a previous engagement, you know.'
'That's your affair,' said the Bishop, 'you're captain. Have you
finished your address? Is there anything else you'd like to say?'
Norris considered, and, as he went in at Jephson's gate, wound up with
this Parthian shaft--
'All I can say is that you're not fit to be at a public school. They
ought to sack a chap for doing that sort of thing. If you'll take my
advice, you'll leave.'
About two hours afterwards Gethryn discovered a suitable retort, but,
coming to the conclusion that better late than never does not apply to
repartees, refrained from speaking it.
It was Mr Jephson's usual custom to sally out after supper on Sunday
evenings to smoke a pipe (or several pipes) with one of the other
House-masters. On this particular evening he made for Robertson's,
which was one of the four Houses on the opposite side of the School
grounds. He could hardly have selected a better man to take his
grievance to. Mr Robertson was a long, silent man with grizzled hair,
and an eye that pierced like a gimlet. He had the enviable reputation
of keeping the best order of any master in the School. He was also one
of the most popular of the staff. This was all the more remarkable from
the fact that he played no games.
To him came Mr Jephson, primed to bursting point with his grievance.
'Anything wrong, Jephson?' said Mr Robertson.
'Wrong? I should just think there was. Did you happen to be looking at
the match yesterday, Robertson?'
Mr Robertson nodded.
'I always watch School matches. Good match. Norris missed a bad catch
in the slips. He was asleep.'
Mr Jephson conceded the point. It was trivial.
'Yes,' he said, 'he should certainly have held it. But that's a mere
detail. I want to talk about Gethryn. Do you know what he did
yesterday? I never heard of such a thing in my life, never. Went off
during the luncheon interval without a word, and never appeared again
till lock-up. And now he refuses to offer any explanation whatever. I
shall report the whole thing to Beckett. I told Gethryn so this
morning.'
'I shouldn't,' said Mr Robertson; 'I really think I shouldn't. Beckett
finds the ordinary duties of a Headmaster quite sufficient for his
needs. This business is not in his province at all.'
'Not in his province? My dear sir, what is a headmaster for, if not to
manage affairs of this sort?'
Mr Robertson smiled in a sphinx-like manner, and answered, after the
fashion of Socrates, with a question.
'Let me ask you two things, Jephson. You must proceed gingerly. Now,
firstly, it is a headmaster's business to punish any breach of school
rules, is it not?'
'Well?'
'And school prefects do not attend roll-call, and have no restrictions
placed upon them in the matter of bounds?'
'No. Well?'
'Then perhaps you'll tell me what School rule Gethryn has broken?' said
Mr Robertson.
'You see you can't,' he went on. 'Of course you can't. He has not
broken any School rule. He is a prefect, and may do anything he likes
with his spare time. He chooses to play cricket. Then he changes his
mind and goes off to some unknown locality for some reason at present
unexplained. It is all perfectly legal. Extremely quaint behaviour on
his part, I admit, but thoroughly legal.'
'Then nothing can be done,' exclaimed Mr Jephson blankly. 'But it's
absurd. Something must be done. The thing can't be left as it is. It's
preposterous!'
'I should imagine,' said Mr Robertson, 'from what small knowledge I
possess of the Human Boy, that matters will be made decidedly
unpleasant for the criminal.'
'Well, I know one thing; he won't play for the team again.'
'There is something very refreshing about your logic, Jephson. Because
a boy does not play in one match, you will not let him play in any of
the others, though you admit his absence weakens the team. However, I
suppose that is unavoidable. Mind you, I think it is a pity. Of course
Gethryn has some explanation, if he would only favour us with it.
Personally I think rather highly of Gethryn. So does poor old
Leicester. He is the only Head-prefect Leicester has had for the last
half-dozen years who knows even the rudiments of his business. But it's
no use my preaching his virtues to you. You wouldn't listen. Take
another cigar, and let's talk about the weather.'
Mr Jephson took the proffered weed, and the conversation, though it did
not turn upon the suggested topic, ceased to have anything to do with
Gethryn.
The general opinion of the School was dead against the Bishop. One or
two of his friends still clung to a hope that explanations might come
out, while there were also a few who always made a point of thinking
differently from everybody else. Of this class was Pringle. On the
Monday after the match he spent the best part of an hour of his
valuable time reasoning on the subject with Lorimer. Lorimer's vote
went with the majority. Although he had fielded for the Bishop, he was
not, of course, being merely a substitute, allowed to bowl, as the
Bishop had had his innings, and it had been particularly galling to him
to feel that he might have saved the match, if it had only been
possible for him to have played a larger part.
'It's no good jawing about it,' he said, 'there isn't a word to say for
the man. He hasn't a leg to stand on. Why, it would be bad enough in a
House or form match even, but when it comes to first matches--!' Here
words failed Lorimer.
'Not at all,' said Pringle, unmoved. 'There are heaps of reasons, jolly
good reasons, why he might have gone away.'
'Such as?' said Lorimer.
'Well, he might have been called away by a telegram, for instance.'
'What rot! Why should he make such a mystery of it if that was all?'
'He'd have explained all right if somebody had asked him properly. You
get a chap like Norris, who, when he loses his hair, has got just about
as much tact as a rhinoceros, going and ballyragging the man, and no
wonder he won't say anything. I shouldn't myself.'
'Well, go and talk to him decently, then. Let's see you do it, and I'll
bet it won't make a bit of difference. What the chap has done is to go
and get himself mixed up in some shady business somewhere. That's the
only thing it can be.'
'Rot,' said Pringle, 'the Bishop isn't that sort of chap.'
'You can't tell. I say,' he broke off suddenly, 'have you done that
poem yet?'
Pringle started. He had not so much as begun that promised epic.
'I--er--haven't quite finished it yet. I'm thinking it out, you know.
Getting a sort of general grip of the thing.'
'Oh. Well, I wish you'd buck up with it. It's got to go in tomorrow
week.'
'Tomorrow week. Tuesday the what? Twenty-second, isn't it? Right. I'll
remember. Two days after the O.B.s' match. That'll fix it in my mind.
By the way, your people are going to come down all right, aren't they?
I mean, we shall have to be getting in supplies and so on.'
'Yes. They'll be coming. There's plenty of time, though, to think of
that. What you've got to do for the present is to keep your mind glued
on the death of Dido.'
'Rather,' said Pringle, 'I won't forget.'
This was at six twenty-two p.m. By the time six-thirty boomed from the
College clock-tower, Pringle was absorbing a thrilling work of fiction,
and Dido, her death, and everything connected with her, had faded from
his mind like a beautiful dream.
[11]
POETRY AND STUMP-CRICKET
The Old Beckfordians' match came off in due season, and Pringle enjoyed
it thoroughly. Though he only contributed a dozen in the first innings,
he made up for this afterwards in the second, when the School had a
hundred and twenty to get in just two hours. He went in first with
Marriott, and they pulled the thing off and gave the School a ten
wickets victory with eight minutes to spare. Pringle was in rare form.
He made fifty-three, mainly off the bowling of a certain J.R. Smith,
whose fag he had been in the old days. When at School, Smith had always
been singularly aggressive towards Pringle, and the latter found that
much pleasure was to be derived from hitting fours off his bowling.
Subsequently he ate more strawberries and cream than were, strictly
speaking, good for him, and did the honours at the study tea-party with
the grace of a born host. And, as he had hoped, Miss Mabel Lorimer
_did_ ask what that silver-plate was stuck on to that bat for.
It is not to be wondered at that in the midst of these festivities such
trivialities as Lorimer's poem found no place in his thoughts. It was
not until the following day that he was reminded of it.
That Sunday was a visiting Sunday. Visiting Sundays occurred three
times a term, when everybody who had friends and relations in the
neighbourhood was allowed to spend the day with them. Pringle on such
occasions used to ride over to Biddlehampton, the scene of Farnie's
adventures, on somebody else's bicycle, his destination being the
residence of a certain Colonel Ashby, no relation, but a great friend
of his father's.
The gallant Colonel had, besides his other merits--which were
numerous--the pleasant characteristic of leaving his guests to
themselves. To be left to oneself under some circumstances is apt to be
a drawback, but in this case there was never any lack of amusements.
The only objection that Pringle ever found was that there was too much
to do in the time. There was shooting, riding, fishing, and also
stump-cricket. Given proper conditions, no game in existence yields to
stump-cricket in the matter of excitement. A stable-yard makes the best
pitch, for the walls stop all hits and you score solely by boundaries,
one for every hit, two if it goes past the coach-room door, four to the
end wall, and out if you send it over. It is perfect.
There were two junior Ashbys, twins, aged sixteen. They went to school
at Charchester, returning to the ancestral home for the weekend.
Sometimes when Pringle came they would bring a school friend, in which
case Pringle and he would play the twins. But as a rule the programme
consisted of a series of five test matches, Charchester _versus_
Beckford; and as Pringle was almost exactly twice as good as each of
the twins taken individually, when they combined it made the sides very
even, and the test matches were fought out with the most deadly
keenness.
After lunch the Colonel was in the habit of taking Pringle for a stroll
in the grounds, to watch him smoke a cigar or two. On this Sunday the
conversation during the walk, after beginning, as was right and proper,
with cricket, turned to work.
'Let me see,' said the Colonel, as Pringle finished the description of
how point had almost got to the square cut which had given him his
century against Charchester, 'you're out of the Upper Fifth now, aren't
you? I always used to think you were going to be a fixture there. You
are like your father in that way. I remember him at Rugby spending
years on end in the same form. Couldn't get out of it. But you did get
your remove, if I remember?'
'Rather,' said Pringle, 'years ago. That's to say, last term. And I'm
jolly glad I did, too.'
His errant memory had returned to the poetry prize once more.
'Oh,' said the Colonel, 'why is that?'
Pringle explained the peculiar disadvantages that attended membership
of the Upper Fifth during the summer term.
'I don't think a man ought to be allowed to spend his money in these
special prizes,' he concluded; 'at any rate they ought to be Sixth Form
affairs. It's hard enough having to do the ordinary work and keep up
your cricket at the same time.'
'They are compulsory then?'
'Yes. Swindle, I call it. The chap who shares my study at Beckford is
in the Upper Fifth, and his hair's turning white under the strain. The
worst of it is, too, that I've promised to help him, and I never seem
to have any time to give to the thing. I could turn out a great poem if
I had an hour or two to spare now and then.'
'What's the subject?'
'Death of Dido this year. They are always jolly keen on deaths. Last
year it was Cato, and the year before Julius Caesar. They seem to have
very morbid minds. I think they might try something cheerful for a
change.'
'Dido,' said the Colonel dreamily. 'Death of Dido. Where have I heard
either a story or a poem or a riddle or something in some way connected
with the death of Dido? It was years ago, but I distinctly remember
having heard somebody mention the occurrence. Oh, well, it will come
back presently, I dare say.'
It did come back presently. The story was this. A friend of Colonel
Ashby's--the one-time colonel of his regiment, to be exact--was an
earnest student of everything in the literature of the country that
dealt with Sport. This gentleman happened to read in a publisher's list
one day that a limited edition of _The Dark Horse_, by a Mr Arthur
James, was on sale, and might be purchased from the publisher by all
who were willing to spend half a guinea to that end.
'Well, old Matthews,' said the Colonel, 'sent off for this book.
Thought it must be a sporting novel, don't you know. I shall never
forget his disappointment when he opened the parcel. It turned out to
be a collection of poems. _The Dark Horse, and Other Studies in the
Tragic_, was its full title.'
'Matthews never had a soul for poetry, good or bad. _The Dark
Horse_ itself was about a knight in the Middle Ages, you know. Great
nonsense it was, too. Matthews used to read me passages from time to
time. When he gave up the regiment he left me the book as a farewell
gift. He said I was the only man he knew who really sympathized with
him in the affair. I've got it still. It's in the library somewhere, if
you care to look at it. What recalled it to my mind was your mention of
Dido. The second poem was about the death of Dido, as far as I can
remember. I'm no judge of poetry, but it didn't strike me as being very
good. At the same time, you might pick up a hint or two from it. It
ought to be in one of the two lower shelves on the right of the door as
you go in. Unless it has been taken away. That is not likely, though.
We are not very enthusiastic poetry readers here.'
Pringle thanked him for his information, and went back to the
stable-yard, where he lost the fourth test match by sixteen runs, owing
to preoccupation. You can't play a yorker on the leg-stump with a thin
walking-stick if your mind is occupied elsewhere. And the leg-stump
yorkers of James, the elder (by a minute) of the two Ashbys, were
achieving a growing reputation in Charchester cricket circles.
One ought never, thought Pringle, to despise the gifts which Fortune
bestows on us. And this mention of an actual completed poem on the very
subject which was in his mind was clearly a gift of Fortune. How much
better it would be to read thoughtfully through this poem, and quarry
out a set of verses from it suitable to Lorimer's needs, than to waste
his brain-tissues in trying to evolve something original from his own
inner consciousness. Pringle objected strongly to any unnecessary waste
of his brain-tissues. Besides, the best poets borrowed. Virgil did it.
Tennyson did it. Even Homer--we have it on the authority of Mr
Kipling--when he smote his blooming lyre went and stole what he thought
he might require. Why should Pringle of the School House refuse to
follow in such illustrious footsteps?
It was at this point that the guileful James delivered his insidious
yorker, and the dull thud of the tennis ball on the board which served
as the wicket told a listening world that Charchester had won the
fourth test match, and that the scores were now two all.
But Beckford's star was to ascend again. Pringle's mind was made up. He
would read the printed poem that very night, and before retiring to
rest he would have Lorimer's verses complete and ready to be sent in
for judgement to the examiner. But for the present he would dismiss the
matter from his mind, and devote himself to polishing off the
Charchester champions in the fifth and final test match. And in this he
was successful, for just as the bell rang, summoning the players in to
a well-earned tea, a sweet forward drive from his walking-stick crashed
against the end wall, and Beckford had won the rubber.
'As the young batsman, undefeated to the last, reached the pavilion,'
said Pringle, getting into his coat, 'a prolonged and deafening salvo
of cheers greeted him. His twenty-three not out, compiled as it was
against the finest bowling Charchester could produce, and on a wicket
that was always treacherous (there's a brick loose at the top end), was
an effort unique in its heroism.'
'Oh, _come_ on,' said the defeated team.
'If you have fluked a win,' said James, 'it's nothing much. Wait till
next visiting Sunday.'
And the teams went in to tea.
In the programme which Pringle had mapped out for himself, he was to go
to bed with his book at the highly respectable hour of ten, work till
eleven, and then go to sleep. But programmes are notoriously subject to
alterations. Pringle's was altered owing to a remark made immediately
after dinner by John Ashby, who, desirous of retrieving the fallen
fortunes of Charchester, offered to play Pringle a hundred up at
billiards, giving him thirty. Now Pringle's ability in the realm of
sport did not extend to billiards. But the human being who can hear
unmoved a fellow human being offering him thirty start in a game of a
hundred has yet to be born. He accepted the challenge, and permission
to play having been granted by the powers that were, on the
understanding that the cloth was not to be cut and as few cues broken
as possible, the game began, James acting as marker.