It was within a few days of the holidays, the term-end examinations,
and, more important still, the issue of the College paper which Beetle
edited. He had been cajoled into that office by the blandishments of
Stalky and McTurk and the extreme rigor of study law. Once installed, he
discovered, as others have done before him, that his duty was to do
the work while his friends criticized. Stalky christened it the
“Swillingford Patriot,” in pious memory of Sponge--and McTurk compared
the output unfavorably with Ruskin and De Quincey. Only the Head took
an interest in the publication, and his methods were peculiar. He gave
Beetle the run of his brown-bound, tobacco-scented library; prohibiting
nothing, recommending nothing. There Beetle found a fat arm-chair, a
silver inkstand, and unlimited pens and paper. There were scores and
scores of ancient dramatists; there were Hakluyt, his voyages; French
translations of Muscovite authors called Pushkin and Lermontoff; little
tales of a heady and bewildering nature, interspersed with unusual
songs--Peacock was that writer’s name; there was Borrow’s “Lavengro”;
an odd theme, purporting to be a translation of something, called a
“Ruba’iyat,” which the Head said was a poem not yet come to its own;
there were hundreds of volumes of verse---Crashaw; Dryden; Alexander
Smith; L. E. L.; Lydia Sigourney; Fletcher and a purple island; Donne;
Marlowe’s “Faust”; and--this made McTurk (to whom Beetle conveyed it)
sheer drunk for three days--Ossian; “The Earthly Paradise”; “Atalanta in
Calydon”; and Rossetti--to name only a few. Then the Head, drifting in
under pretense of playing censor to the paper, would read here a
verse and here another of these poets, opening up avenues. And, slow
breathing, with half-shut eyes above his cigar, would he speak of great
men living, and journals, long dead, founded in their riotous youth;
of years when all the planets were little new-lit stars trying to find
their places in the uncaring void, and he, the Head, knew them as young
men know one another. So the regular work went to the dogs, Beetle being
full of other matters and meters, hoarded in secret and only told to
McTurk of an afternoon, on the sands, walking high and disposedly round
the wreck of the Armada galleon, shouting and declaiming against the
long-ridged seas.
Thanks in large part to their house-master’s experienced distrust, the
three for three consecutive terms had been passed over for promotion to
the rank of prefect--an office that went by merit, and carried with it
the honor of the ground-ash, and liberty, under restrictions, to use it.
“_But_,” said Stalky, “come to think of it, we’ve done more giddy
jesting with the Sixth since we’ve been passed over than any one else in
the last seven years.”
He touched his neck proudly. It was encircled by the stiffest of
stick-up collars, which custom decreed could be worn only by the Sixth.
And the Sixth saw those collars and said no word. “Pussy,” Abanazar, or
Dick Four of a year ago would have seen them discarded in five minutes
or... But the Sixth of that term was made up mostly of young but
brilliantly clever boys, pets of the house-masters, too anxious for
their dignity to care to come to open odds with the resourceful three.
So they crammed their caps at the extreme back of their heads,
instead of a trifle over one eye as the Fifth should, and rejoiced
in patent-leather boots on week-days, and marvellous made-up ties on
Sundays--no man rebuking. McTurk was going up for Cooper’s Hill, and
Stalky for Sandhurst, in the spring; and the Head had told them both
that, unless they absolutely collapsed during the holidays, they were
safe. As a trainer of colts, the Head seldom erred in an estimate of
form.
He had taken Beetle aside that day and given him much good advice, not
one word of which did Beetle remember when he dashed up to the study,
white with excitement, and poured out the wondrous tale. It demanded a
great belief.
“You begin on a hundred a year?” said McTurk unsympathetically. “Rot!”
“_And_ my passage out! It’s all settled. The Head says he’s been
breaking me in for this for ever so long, and I never knew--I never
knew. One don’t begin with writing straight off, y’know. Begin by
filling in telegrams and cutting things out o’ papers with scissors.”
“Oh, Scissors! What an ungodly mess you’ll make of it,” said Stalky.
“But, anyhow, this will be your last term, too. Seven years, my dearly
beloved ’earers--though not prefects.”
“Not half bad years, either,” said McTurk. “I shall be sorry to leave
the old Coll.; shan’t you?”
They looked out over the sea creaming along the Pebbleridge in the clear
winter light. “Wonder where we shall all be this time next year?” said
Stalky absently.
“This time five years,” said McTurk.
“Oh,” said Beetle, “my leavin’s between ourselves. The Head hasn’t told
any one. I know he hasn’t, because Prout grunted at me to-day that if
I were more reasonable--yah!--I might be a prefect next term. I s’ppose
he’s hard up for his prefects.”
“Let’s finish up with a row with the Sixth,” suggested McTurk.
“Dirty little schoolboys!” said Stalky, who already saw himself a
Sandhurst cadet. “What’s the use?”
“Moral effect,” quoth McTurk. “Leave an imperishable tradition, and all
the rest of it.”
“Better go into Bideford an’ pay up our debts,” said Stalky. “I’ve got
three quid out of my father--_ad hoc_. Don’t owe more than thirty bob,
either. Cut along, Beetle, and ask the Head for leave. Say you want to
correct the ‘Swillingford Patriot.’”
“Well, I do,” said Beetle. “It’ll be my last issue, and I’d like it to
look decent. I’ll catch him before he goes to his lunch.”
Ten minutes later they wheeled out in line, by grace released from
five o’clock call-over, and all the afternoon lay before them. So also
unluckily did King, who never passed without witticisms. But brigades of
Kings could not have ruffled Beetle that day.
“Aha! Enjoying the study of light literature, my friends,” said he,
rubbing his hands. “Common mathematics are not for such soaring minds as
yours, are they?”
(“One hundred a year,” thought Beetle, smiling into vacancy.)
“Our open incompetence takes refuge in the flowery paths of inaccurate
fiction. But a day of reckoning approaches, Beetle mine. I myself
have prepared a few trifling foolish questions in Latin prose which
can hardly be evaded even by your practised acts of deception. Ye-es,
Latin prose. I think, if I may say so--but we shall see when the papers
are set--‘Ulpian serves _your_ need.’ Aha! ‘_Elucescebat_, quoth our
friend.’ We shall see! We shall see!”
Still no sign from Beetle. He was on a steamer, his passage paid into
the wide and wonderful world--a thousand leagues beyond Lundy Island.
King dropped him with a snarl.
“He doesn’t know. He’ll go on correctin’ exercises an’ jawin’ an’
showin’ off before the little boys next term--and next.” Beetle hurried
after his companions up the steep path of the furze-clad hill behind the
College.
They were throwing pebbles on the top of the gasometer, and the grimy
gas-man in charge bade them desist. They watched him oil a turncock sunk
in the ground between two furze-bushes.
“Cokey, what’s that for?” said Stalky.
“To turn the gas on to the kitchens,” said Cokey. “If so be I
didn’t turn her on, yeou young gen’lemen ’ud be larnin’ your book by
candlelight.”
“Um!” said Stalky, and was silent for at least a minute.
“Hullo! Where are you chaps going?” A bend of the lane brought them
face to face with Tulke, senior prefect of King’s house--a smallish,
white-haired boy, of the type that must be promoted on account of
its intellect, and ever afterwards appeals to the Head to support its
authority when zeal has outrun discretion.
The three took no sort of notice. They were on lawful pass. Tulke
repeated his question hotly, for he had suffered many slights from
Number Five study, and fancied that he had at last caught them tripping.
“What the devil is that to you?” Stalky replied with his sweetest smile.
“Look here, I’m not goin’--I’m not goin’ to be sworn at by the Fifth!”
sputtered Tulke.
“Then cut along and call a prefects’ meeting,” said McTurk, knowing
Tulke’s weakness.
The prefect became inarticulate with rage.
“Mustn’t yell at the Fifth that way,” said Stalky. “It’s vile bad form.”
“Cough it up, ducky!” McTurk said calmly.
“I--I want to know what you chaps are doing out of bounds?” This with an
important flourish of his ground-ash.
“Ah,” said Stalky. “Now we’re gettin’ at it. Why didn’t you ask that
before?”
“Well, I ask it now. What are you doing?”
“We’re admiring you, Tulke,” said Stalky. “We think you’re no end of a
fine chap, don’t we?”
“We do! We do!” A dog-cart with some girls in it swept round the corner,
and Stalky promptly kneeled before Tulke in the attitude of prayer; so
Tulke turned a color.
“I’ve reason to believe--” he began.
“Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” shouted Beetle, after the manner of Bideford’s town
crier, “Tulke has reason to believe! Three cheers for Tulke!”
They were given. “It’s all our giddy admiration,” said Stalky. “You
know how we love you, Tulke. We love you so much we think you ought to
go home and die. You’re too good to live, Tulke.”
“Yes,” said McTurk. “_Do_ oblige us by dyin’. Think how lovely you’d
look stuffed!”
Tulke swept up the road with an unpleasant glare in his eye.
“That means a prefects’ meeting--sure pop,” said Stalky. “Honor of the
Sixth involved, and all the rest of it. Tulke’ll write notes all this
afternoon, and Carson will call us up after tea. They daren’t overlook
that.”
“Bet you a bob he follows us!” said McTurk. “He’s King’s pet, and it’s
scalps to both of ’em if we’re caught out. We must be virtuous.”
“Then I move we go to Mother Yeo’s for a last gorge. We owe her about
ten bob, and Mary’ll weep sore when she knows we’re leaving,” said
Beetle.
“She gave me an awful wipe on the head last time--Mary,” said Stalky.
“She does if you don’t duck,” said McTurk. “But she generally kisses one
back. Let’s try Mother Yeo.”
They sought a little bottle-windowed half dairy, half restaurant, a
dark-brewed, two-hundred-year-old house, at the head of a narrow side
street. They had patronized it from the days of their fagdom, and were
very much friends at home.
“We’ve come to pay our debts, mother,” said Stalky, sliding his arm
round the fifty-six-inch waist of the mistress of the establishment. “To
pay our debts and say good-by--and--and we’re awf’ly hungry.”
“Aie!” said Mother Yeo, “makkin’ love to me! I’m shaamed of ’ee.”
“’Rackon us wouldn’t du no such thing if Mary was here,” said McTurk,
lapsing into the broad North Devon that the boys used on their
campaigns.
“Who’m takin’ my name in vain?” The inner door opened, and Mary,
fair-haired, blue-eyed, and apple-checked, entered with a bowl of cream
in her hands. McTurk kissed her. Beetle followed suit, with exemplary
calm. Both boys were promptly cuffed.
“Niver kiss the maid when ’e can kiss the mistress,” said Stalky,
shamelessly winking at Mother Yeo, as he investigated a shelf of jams.
“Glad to see one of ’ee don’t want his head slapped no more?” said Mary
invitingly, in that direction.
“Neu! Reckon I can get ’em give me,” said Stalky, his back turned.
“Not by me--yeou little masterpiece!”
“Niver asked ’ee. There’s maids to Northam. Yiss--an’ Appledore.” An
unreproducible sniff, half contempt, half reminiscence, rounded the
retort.
“Aie! Yeou won’t niver come to no good end. Whutt be ’baout, smellin’
the cream?”
“’Tees bad,” said Stalky. “Zmell ’un.”
Incautiously Mary did as she was bid.
“Bidevoor kiss.”
“Niver amiss,” said Stalky, taking it without injury.
“Yeou--yeou--yeou--” Mary began, bubbling with mirth.
“They’m better to Northam--more rich, laike an’ us gets them give back
again,” he said, while McTurk solemnly waltzed Mother Yeo out of breath,
and Beetle told Mary the sad news, as they sat down to clotted cream,
jam, and hot bread.
“Yiss. Yeou’ll niver zee us no more, Mary. We’re goin’ to be passons an’
missioners.”
“Steady the Buffs!” said McTurk, looking through the blind. “Tulke _has_
followed us. He’s comin’ up the street now.”
“They’ve niver put us out o’ bounds,” said Mother Yeo. “Bide yeou still,
my little dearrs.” She rolled into the inner room to make the score.
“Mary,” said Stalky, suddenly, with tragic intensity. “Do ’ee lov’ me,
Mary?”
“Iss--fai! Talled ’ee zo since yeou was zo high!” the damsel replied.
“Zee ’un comin’ up street, then?” Stalky pointed to the unconscious
Tulke. “He’ve niver been kissed by no sort or manner o’ maid in hees
borned laife, Mary. Oh, ’tees shaamful!”
“Whutt’s to do with me? ’Twill come to ’un in the way o’ nature, I
rackon.” She nodded her head sagaciously. “You niver want me to kiss
un--sure-_ly_?”
“Give ’ee half-a-crown if ’ee will,” said Stalky, exhibiting the coin.