Charchester with the others. And at this point a painful alternative
faces me. I have to choose between truth and inclination. I should like
to say that the Bishop eclipsed himself, and broke all previous records
in the Charchester match. By the rules of the dramatic, nothing else is
possible. But truth, though it crush me, and truth compels me to admit
that his performance was in reality distinctly mediocre. One of his
weak points as a bowler was that he was at sea when opposed to a
left-hander. Many bowlers have this failing. Some strange power seems
to compel them to bowl solely on the leg side, and nothing but long
hops and full pitches. It was so in the case of Gethryn. Charchester
won the toss, and batted first on a perfect wicket. The first pair of
batsmen were the captain, a great bat, who had scored seventy-three not
out against Beckford in the previous match, and a left-handed fiend.
Baynes's leg-breaks were useless on a wicket which, from the hardness
of it, might have been constructed of asphalt, and the rubbish the
Bishop rolled up to the left-handed artiste was painful to witness. At
four o'clock--the match had started at half-past eleven--the
Charchester captain reached his century, and was almost immediately
stumped off Baynes. The Bishop bowled the next man first ball, the one
bright spot in his afternoon's performance. Then came another long
stand, against which the Beckford bowling raged in vain. At five
o'clock, Charchester by that time having made two hundred and forty-one
for two wickets, the left-hander ran into three figures, and the
captain promptly declared the innings closed. Beckford's only chance
was to play for a draw, and in this they succeeded. When stumps were
drawn at a quarter to seven, the score was a hundred and three, and
five wickets were down. The Bishop had the satisfaction of being not
out with twenty-eight to his credit, but nothing less than a century
would have been sufficient to soothe him after his shocking bowling
performance. Pringle, who during the luncheon interval had encountered
his young friends the Ashbys, and had been duly taunted by them on the
subject of leather-hunting, was top scorer with forty-one. Norris, I
regret to say, only made three, running himself out in his second over.
As the misfortune could not, by any stretch of imagination, be laid at
anybody else's door but his own, he was decidedly savage. The team
returned to Beckford rather footsore, very disgusted, and abnormally
silent. Norris sulked by himself at one end of the saloon carriage, and
the Bishop sulked by himself at the other end, and even Marriott
forbore to treat the situation lightly. It was a mournful home-coming.
No cheering wildly as the brake drove to the College from Horton, no
shouting of the School song in various keys as they passed through the
big gates. Simply silence. And except when putting him on to bowl, or
taking him off, or moving him in the field, Norris had not spoken a
word to the Bishop the whole afternoon.
It was shortly after this disaster that Mr Mortimer Wells came to stay
with the Headmaster. Mr Mortimer Wells was a brilliant and superior
young man, who was at some pains to be a cynic. He was an old pupil of
the Head's in the days before he had succeeded to the rule of Beckford.
He had the reputation of being a 'ripe' scholar, and to him had been
deputed the task of judging the poetical outbursts of the bards of the
Upper Fifth, with the object of awarding to the most deserving--or,
perhaps, to the least undeserving--the handsome prize bequeathed by his
open-handed highness, the Rajah of Seltzerpore.
This gentleman sat with his legs stretched beneath the Headmaster's
generous table. Dinner had come to an end, and a cup of coffee, acting
in co-operation with several glasses of port and an excellent cigar,
had inspired him to hold forth on the subject of poetry prizes. He held
forth.
'The poetry prize system,' said he--it is astonishing what nonsense a
man, ordinarily intelligent, will talk after dinner--'is on exactly the
same principle as those penny-in-the-slot machines that you see at
stations. You insert your penny. You set your prize subject. In the
former case you hope for wax vestas, and you get butterscotch. In the
latter, you hope for something at least readable, and you get the most
complete, terrible, uninspired twaddle that was ever written on paper.
The boy mind'--here the ash of his cigar fell off on to his
waistcoat--'the merely boy mind is incapable of poetry.'
From which speech the shrewd reader will infer that Mr Mortimer Wells
was something of a prig. And perhaps, altogether shrewd reader, you're
right.
Mr Lawrie, the master of the Sixth, who had been asked to dinner to
meet the great man, disagreed as a matter of principle. He was one of
those men who will take up a cause from pure love of argument.
'I think you're wrong, sir. I'm perfectly convinced you're wrong.'
Mr Wells smiled in his superior way, as if to say that it was a pity
that Mr Lawrie was so foolish, but that perhaps he could not help it.
'Ah,' he said, 'but you have not had to wade through over thirty of
these gems in a single week. I have. I can assure you your views would
undergo a change if you could go through what I have. Let me read you a
selection. If that does not convert you, nothing will. If you will
excuse me for a moment, Beckett, I will leave the groaning board, and
fetch the manuscripts.'
He left the room, and returned with a pile of paper, which he deposited
in front of him on the table.
'Now,' he said, selecting the topmost manuscript, 'I will take no
unfair advantage. I will read you the very pick of the bunch. None of
the other--er--poems come within a long way of this. It is a case of
Eclipse first and the rest nowhere. The author, the gifted author, is a
boy of the name of Lorimer, whom I congratulate on taking the Rajah's
prize. I drain this cup of coffee to him. Are you ready? Now, then.'
He cleared his throat.
[16]
A DISPUTED AUTHORSHIP
'One moment,' said Mr Lawrie, 'might I ask what is the subject of the
poem?'
'Death of Dido,' said the Headmaster. 'Good, hackneyed, evergreen
subject, mellow with years. Go on, Wells.'
Mr Wells began.
Queen of Tyre, ancient Tyre,
Whilom mistress of the wave.
Mr Lawrie, who had sunk back into the recesses of his chair in an
attitude of attentive repose, sat up suddenly with a start.
'What!' he cried.
'Hullo,' said Mr Wells, 'has the beauty of the work come home to you
already?'
'You notice,' he said, as he repeated the couplet, 'that flaws begin to
appear in the gem right from the start. It was rash of Master Lorimer
to attempt such a difficult metre. Plucky, but rash. He should have
stuck to blank verse. Tyre, you notice, two syllables to rhyme with
"deny her" in line three. "What did fortune e'er deny her? Were not all
her warriors brave?" That last line seems to me distinctly weak. I
don't know how it strikes you.'
'You're hypercritical, Wells,' said the Head. 'Now, for a boy I
consider that a very good beginning. What do you say, Lawrie?'
'I--er. Oh, I think I am hardly a judge.'
'To resume,' said Mr Mortimer Wells. He resumed, and ran through the
remaining verses of the poem with comments. When he had finished, he
remarked that, in his opinion a whiff of fresh air would not hurt him.
If the Headmaster would excuse him, he would select another of those
excellent cigars, and smoke it out of doors.
'By all means,' said the Head; 'I think I won't join you myself, but
perhaps Lawrie will.'
'No, thank you. I think I will remain. Yes, I think I will remain.'
Mr Wells walked jauntily out of the room. When the door had shut, Mr
Lawrie coughed nervously.
'Another cigar, Lawrie?'
'I--er--no, thank you. I want to ask you a question. What is your
candid opinion of those verses Mr Wells was reading just now?'
The Headmaster laughed.
'I don't think Wells treated them quite fairly. In my opinion they were
distinctly promising. For a boy in the Upper Fifth, you understand.
Yes, on the whole they showed distinct promise.'
'They were mine,' said Mr Lawrie.
'Yours! I don't understand. How were they yours?'
'I wrote them. Every word of them.'
'You wrote them! But, my dear Lawrie--'
'I don't wonder that you are surprised. For my own part I am amazed,
simply amazed. How the boy--I don't even remember his name--contrived
to get hold of them, I have not the slightest conception. But that he
did so contrive is certain. The poem is word for word, literally word
for word, the same as one which I wrote when I was at Cambridge.'
'You
don't say so!'
'Yes. It can hardly be a coincidence.'
'Hardly,' said the Head. 'Are you certain of this?'
'Perfectly certain. I am not eager to claim the authorship, I can
assure you, especially after Mr Wells's very outspoken criticisms, but
there is nothing else to be done. The poem appeared more than a dozen
years ago, in a small book called _The Dark Horse_.'
'Ah! Something in the Whyte Melville style, I suppose?'
'No,' said Mr Lawrie sharply. 'No. Certainly not. They were serious
poems, tragical most of them. I had them collected, and published them
at my own expense. Very much at my own expense. I used a pseudonym, I
am thankful to say. As far as I could ascertain, the total sale
amounted to eight copies. I have never felt the very slightest
inclination to repeat the performance. But how this boy managed to see
the book is more than I can explain. He can hardly have bought it. The
price was half-a-guinea. And there is certainly no copy in the School
library. The thing is a mystery.'
'A mystery that must be solved,' said the Headmaster. 'The fact remains
that he did see the book, and it is very serious. Wholesale plagiarism
of this description should be kept for the School magazine. It should
not be allowed to spread to poetry prizes. I must see Lorimer about
this tomorrow. Perhaps he can throw some light upon the matter.'
When, in the course of morning school next day, the School porter
entered the Upper Fifth form-room and informed Mr Sims, who was engaged
in trying to drive the beauties of Plautus' colloquial style into the
Upper Fifth brain, that the Headmaster wished to see Lorimer, Lorimer's
conscience was so abnormally good that for the life of him he could not
think why he had been sent for. As far as he could remember, there was
no possible way in which the authorities could get at him. If he had
been in the habit of smoking out of bounds in lonely fields and
deserted barns, he might have felt uneasy. But whatever his failings,
that was not one of them. It could not be anything about bounds,
because he had been so busy with cricket that he had had no time to
break them this term. He walked into the presence, glowing with
conscious rectitude. And no sooner was he inside than the Headmaster,
with three simple words, took every particle of starch out of his
anatomy.
'Sit down, Lorimer,' he said.
There are many ways of inviting a person to seat himself. The genial
'take a pew' of one's equal inspires confidence. The raucous 'sit down
in front' of the frenzied pit, when you stand up to get a better view
of the stage, is not so pleasant. But worst of all is the icy 'sit
down' of the annoyed headmaster. In his mouth the words take to
themselves new and sinister meanings. They seem to accuse you of
nameless crimes, and to warn you that anything you may say will be used
against you as evidence.
'Why have I sent for you, Lorimer?'
A nasty question that, and a very favourite one of the Rev. Mr Beckett,
Headmaster of Beckford. In nine cases out of ten, the person addressed,
paralysed with nervousness, would give himself away upon the instant,
and confess everything. Lorimer, however, was saved by the fact that he
had nothing to confess. He stifled an inclination to reply 'because the
woodpecker would peck her', or words to that effect, and maintained a
pallid silence.
'Have you ever heard of a book called _The Dark Horse_, Lorimer?'
Lorimer began to feel that the conversation was too deep for him. After
opening in the conventional 'judge-then-placed-the-black-cap-on-his-head'
manner, his assailant had suddenly begun to babble lightly of sporting
literature. He began to entertain doubts of the Headmaster's sanity. It
would not have added greatly to his mystification if the Head had gone
on to insist that he was the Emperor of Peru, and worked solely by
electricity.
The Headmaster, for his part, was also surprised. He had worked for
dismay, conscious guilt, confessions, and the like, instead of blank
amazement. He, too, began to have his doubts. Had Mr Lawrie been
mistaken? It was not likely, but it was barely possible. In which case
the interview had better be brought to an abrupt stop until he had made
inquiries. The situation was at a deadlock.
Fortunately at this point half-past twelve struck, and the bell rang
for the end of morning school. The situation was saved, and the tension
relaxed.
'You may go, Lorimer,' said the Head, 'I will send for you later.'
He swept out of the room, and Lorimer raced over to the House to inform
Pringle that the Headmaster had run suddenly mad, and should by rights
be equipped with a strait-waistcoat.
'You never saw such a man,' he said, 'hauled me out of school in the
middle of a Plautus lesson, dumps me down in a chair, and then asks me
if I've read some weird sporting novel or other.'
'Sporting novel! My dear man!'
'Well, it sounded like it from the title.'
'The title. Oh!'
'What's up?'
Pringle had leaped to his feet as if he had suddenly discovered that he
was sitting on something red-hot. His normal air of superior calm had
vanished. He was breathless with excitement. A sudden idea had struck
him with the force of a bullet.
'What was the title he asked you if you'd read the book of?' he
demanded incoherently.
'_The Derby Winner_.'
Pringle sat down again, relieved.
'Oh. Are you certain?'
'No, of course it wasn't that. I was only ragging. The real title was
_The Dark Horse_. Hullo, what's up now? Have you got 'em too?'
'What's up? I'll tell you. We're done for. Absolutely pipped. That's
what's the matter.'
'Hang it, man, do give us a chance. Why can't you explain, instead of
sitting there talking like that? Why are we done? What have we done,
anyway?'
'The poem, of course, the prize poem. I forgot, I never told you. I
hadn't time to write anything of my own, so I cribbed it straight out
of a book called _The Dark Horse_. Now do you see?'
Lorimer saw. He grasped the whole unpainted beauty of the situation in
a flash, and for some moments it rendered him totally unfit for
intellectual conversation. When he did speak his observation was brief,
but it teemed with condensed meaning. It was the conversational
parallel to the ox in the tea-cup.
'My aunt!' he said.
'There'll be a row about this,' said Pringle.
'What am I to say when he has me in this afternoon? He said he would.'
'Let the whole thing out. No good trying to hush it up. He may let us
down easy if you're honest about it.'
It relieved Lorimer to hear Pringle talk about 'us'. It meant that he
was not to be left to bear the assault alone. Which, considering that
the whole trouble was, strictly speaking, Pringle's fault, was only
just.
'But how am I to explain? I can't reel off a long yarn all about how
you did it all, and so on. It would be too low.'
'I know,' said Pringle, 'I've got it. Look here, on your way to the Old
Man's room you pass the Remove door. Well, when you pass, drop some
money. I'll be certain to hear it, as I sit next the door. And then
I'll ask to leave the room, and we'll go up together.'
'Good man, Pringle, you're a genius. Thanks, awfully.'
But as it happened, this crafty scheme was not found necessary. The
blow did not fall till after lock-up.
Lorimer being in the Headmaster's House, it was possible to interview
him without the fuss and advertisement inseparable from a 'sending for
during school'. Just as he was beginning his night-work, the butler
came with a message that he was wanted in the Headmaster's part of the
House.
'It was only Mr Lorimer as the master wished to see,' said the butler,
as Pringle rose to accompany his companion in crime.
'That's all right,' said Pringle, 'the Headmaster's always glad to see
me. I've got a standing invitation. He'll understand.'
At first, when he saw two where he had only sent for one, the
Headmaster did not understand at all, and said so. He had prepared to
annihilate Lorimer hip and thigh, for he was now convinced that his
blank astonishment at the mention of _The Dark Horse_ during their
previous interview had been, in the words of the bard, a mere veneer, a
wile of guile. Since the morning he had seen Mr Lawrie again, and had
with his own eyes compared the two poems, the printed and the written,
the author by special request having hunted up a copy of that valuable
work, _The Dark Horse_, from the depths of a cupboard in his
rooms.
His astonishment melted before Pringle's explanation, which was brief
and clear, and gave way to righteous wrath. In well-chosen terms he
harangued the two criminals. Finally he perorated.
'There is only one point which tells in your favour. You have not
attempted concealment.' (Pringle nudged Lorimer surreptitiously at
this.) 'And I may add that I believe that, as you say, you did not
desire actually to win the prize by underhand means. But I cannot
overlook such an offence. It is serious. Most serious. You will, both
of you, go into extra lesson for the remaining Saturdays of the term.'
Extra lesson meant that instead of taking a half-holiday on Saturday
like an ordinary law-abiding individual, you treated the day as if it
were a full-school day, and worked from two till four under the eye of
the Headmaster. Taking into consideration everything, the punishment
was not an extraordinarily severe one, for there were only two more
Saturdays to the end of term, and the sentence made no mention of the
Wednesday half-holidays.
But in effect it was serious indeed. It meant that neither Pringle nor
Lorimer would be able to play in the final House match against
Leicester's, which was fixed to begin on the next Saturday at two
o'clock. Among the rules governing the House matches was one to the
effect that no House might start a match with less than eleven men, nor
might the Eleven be changed during the progress of the match--a rule
framed by the Headmaster, not wholly without an eye to emergencies like
the present.
'Thank goodness,' said Pringle, 'that there aren't any more First
matches. It's bad enough, though, by Jove, as it is. I suppose it's
occurred to you that this cuts us out of playing in the final?'
Lorimer said the point had not escaped his notice.
'I wish,' he observed, with simple pathos, 'that I'd got the Rajah of
Seltzerpore here now. I'd strangle him. I wonder if the Old Man
realizes that he's done his own House out of the cup?'
'Wouldn't care if he did. Still, it's a sickening nuisance. Leicester's
are a cert now.'
'Absolute cert,' said Lorimer; 'Baynes can't do all the bowling,
especially on a hard wicket, and there's nobody else. As for our
batting and fielding--'
'Don't,' said-Pringle gloomily, 'it's too awful.'
On the following Saturday, Leicester's ran up a total in their first
innings which put the issue out of doubt, and finished off the game on
the Monday by beating the School House by six wickets.
[17]
THE WINTER TERM
It was the first day of the winter term.
The Bishop, as he came back by express, could not help feeling that,
after all, life considered as an institution had its points. Things had
mended steadily during the last weeks of the term. He had kept up his
end as head of the House perfectly. The internal affairs of Leicester's
were going as smoothly as oil. And there was the cricket cup to live up
to. Nothing pulls a House together more than beating all comers in the
field, especially against odds, as Leicester's had done. And then Monk
and Danvers had left. That had set the finishing touch to a good term's
work. The Mob were no longer a power in the land. Waterford remained,
but a subdued, benevolent Waterford, with a wonderful respect for law
and order. Yes, as far as the House was concerned, Gethryn felt no
apprehensions. As regarded the School at large, things were bound to
come right in time. A school has very little memory. And in the present
case the Bishop, being second man in the Fifteen, had unusual
opportunities of righting himself in the eyes of the multitude. In the
winter term cricket is forgotten. Football is the only game that
counts.
And to round off the whole thing, when he entered his study he found a
letter on the table. It was from Farnie, and revealed two curious and
interesting facts. Firstly he had left, and Beckford was to know him no
more. Secondly--this was even more remarkable--he possessed a
conscience.
'Dear Gethryn,' ran the letter, 'I am writing to tell you my father is
sending me to a school in France, so I shall not come back to Beckford.
I am sorry about the M.C.C. match, and I enclose the four pounds you
lent me. I utterly bar the idea of going to France. It's beastly, yours
truly, R. Farnie.'
The money mentioned was in the shape of a cheque, signed by Farnie
senior.
Gethryn was distinctly surprised. That all this time remorse like a
worm i' the bud should have been feeding upon his uncle's damask cheek,
as it were, he had never suspected. His relative's demeanour since the
M.C.C. match had, it is true, been considerably toned down, but this he
had attributed to natural causes, not unnatural ones like conscience.
As for the four pounds, he had set it down as a bad debt. To get it
back was like coming suddenly into an unexpected fortune. He began to
think that there must have been some good in Farnie after all, though
he was fain to admit that without the aid of a microscope the human eye
might well have been excused for failing to detect it.
His next thought was that there was nothing now to prevent him telling
the whole story to Reece and Marriott. Reece, if anybody, deserved to
have his curiosity satisfied. The way in which he had abstained from
questions at the time of the episode had been nothing short of
magnificent. Reece must certainly be told.
Neither Reece nor Marriott had arrived at the moment. Both were in the
habit of returning at the latest possible hour, except at the beginning
of the summer term. The Bishop determined to reserve his story until
the following evening.
Accordingly, when the study kettle was hissing on the Etna, and Wilson
was crouching in front of the fire, making toast in his own inimitable
style, he embarked upon his narrative.
'I say, Marriott.'
'Hullo.'
'Do you notice a subtle change in me this term? Does my expressive
purple eye gleam more brightly than of yore? It does. Exactly so. I
feel awfully bucked up. You know that kid Farnie has left?'
'I thought I missed his merry prattle. What's happened to him?'
'Gone to a school in France somewhere.'
'Jolly for France.'
'Awfully. But the point is that now he's gone I can tell you about that
M.C.C. match affair. I know you want to hear what really did happen
that afternoon.'
Marriott pointed significantly at Wilson, whose back was turned.
'Oh, that's all right,' said Gethryn. 'Wilson.'
'Yes?'
'You mustn't listen. Try and think you're a piece of furniture. See?
And if you do happen to overhear anything, you needn't go gassing about
it. Follow?'
'All right,' said Wilson, and Gethryn told his tale.
'Jove,' he said, as he finished, 'that's a relief. It's something to
have got that off my chest. I do bar keeping a secret.'
'But, I say,' said Marriott.
'Well?'
'Well, it was beastly good of you to do it, and that sort of thing, I
suppose. I see that all right. But, my dear man, what a rotten thing to
do. A kid like that. A little beast who simply cried out for sacking.'
'Well, at any rate, it's over now. You needn't jump on me. I acted from
the best motives. That's what my grandfather, Farnie's _pater_,
you know, always used to say when he got at me for anything in the
happy days of my childhood. Don't sit there looking like a beastly
churchwarden, you ass. Buck up, and take an intelligent interest in
things.'
'No, but really, Bishop,' said Marriott, 'you must treat this
seriously. You'll have to let the other chaps know about it.'
'How? Put it up on the notice-board? This is to certify that Mr Allan
Gethryn, of Leicester's House, Beckford, is dismissed without a stain
on his character. You ass, how can I let them know? I seem to see
myself doing the boy-hero style of things. My friends, you wronged me,
you wronged me very grievously. But I forgive you. I put up with your
cruel scorn. I endured it. I steeled myself against it. And now I
forgive you profusely, every one of you. Let us embrace. It wouldn't
do. You must see that much. Don't be a goat. Is that toast done yet,
Wilson?'
Wilson exhibited several pounds of the article in question.
'Good,' said the Bishop. 'You're a great man, Wilson. You can make a
small selection of those biscuits, and if you bag all the sugar ones
I'll slay you, and then you can go quietly downstairs, and rejoin your
sorrowing friends. And don't you go telling them what I've been
saying.'
'Rather not,' said Wilson.
He made his small selection, and retired. The Bishop turned to Marriott
again.
'I shall tell Reece, because he deserves it, and I rather think I shall
tell Gosling and Pringle. Nobody else, though. What's the good of it?
Everybody'll forget the whole thing by next season.'
'How about Norris?' asked Marriott.
'Now there you have touched the spot. I can't possibly tell Norris
myself. My natural pride is too enormous. Descended from a primordial
atomic globule, you know, like Pooh Bah. And I shook hands with a duke
once. The man Norris and I, I regret to say, had something of a row on
the subject last term. We parted with mutual expressions of hate, and
haven't spoken since. What I should like would be for somebody else to
tell him all about it. Not you. It would look too much like a put-up
job. So don't you go saying anything. Swear.'
'Why not?'
'Because you mustn't. Swear. Let me hear you swear by the bones of your
ancestors.'
'All right. I call it awful rot, though.'
'Can't be helped. Painful but necessary. Now I'm going to tell Reece,
though I don't expect he'll remember anything about it. Reece never
remembers anything beyond his last meal.'
'Idiot,' said Marriott after him as the door closed. 'I don't know,
though,' he added to himself.
And, pouring himself out another cup of tea, he pondered deeply over
the matter.