good, and this doesn't make him very much worse. Besides, he'll
probably be sick enough on his own account. I know I should, if I'd
done it. And, anyway, we don't know that he did do it."
"I'm certain he did. I could swear it was him."
"Anyhow, for goodness' sake let the thing drop."
"All right. But I shall cut him."
"Well, that would be punishment enough for anybody, whatever he'd done.
Fancy existence without your bright conversation. It doesn't bear
thinking of. You do look a freak with that eye and that lump on your
forehead. You ought to wear a mask."
"That ear of yours," said Linton with satisfaction, "will be about
three times its ordinary size tomorrow. And it always was too large.
Good night."
On his way back to Seymour's Mason of Appleby's, who was standing at
his house gate imbibing fresh air, preparatory to going to bed,
accosted him.
"I say, Linton," he said, "--hullo, you look a wreck, don't you!--I
say, what's all this about your house?"
"What about my house?"
"Funking, and all that. Sheen, you know. Stanning has just been telling
me."
"Then he saw him, too!" exclaimed Linton, involuntarily.
"Oh, it's true, then? Did he really cut off like that? Stanning said he
did, but I wouldn't believe him at first. You aren't going? Good
night."
So the thing was out. Linton had not counted on Stanning having seen
what he and Dunstable had seen. It was impossible to hush it up now.
The scutcheon of Seymour's was definitely blotted. The name of the
house was being held up to scorn in Appleby's probably everywhere else
as well. It was a nuisance, thought Linton, but it could not be helped.
After all, it was a judgment on the house for harbouring such a
specimen as Sheen.
In Seymour's there was tumult and an impromptu indignation meeting.
Stanning had gone to work scientifically. From the moment that, ducking
under the guard of a sturdy town youth, he had caught sight of Sheen
retreating from the fray, he had grasped the fact that here,
ready-made, was his chance of working off his grudge against him. All
he had to do was to spread the news abroad, and the school would do the
rest. On his return from the town he had mentioned the facts of the
case to one or two of the more garrulous members of his house, and they
had passed it on to everybody they met during the interval in the
middle of preparation. By the end of preparation half the school knew
what had happened.
Seymour's was furious. The senior day-room to a man condemned Sheen.
The junior day-room was crimson in the face and incoherent. The
demeanour of a junior in moments of excitement generally lacks that
repose which marks the philosopher.
"He ought to be kicked," shrilled Renford.
"We shall get rotted by those kids in Dexter's," moaned Harvey.
"Disgracing the house!" thundered Watson.
"Let's go and chuck things at his door," suggested Renford.
A move was made to the passage in which Sheen's study was situated,
and, with divers groans and howls, the junior day-room hove football
boots and cricket stumps at the door.
The success of the meeting, however, was entirely neutralised by the
fact that in the same passage stood the study of Rigby, the head of the
house. Also Rigby was trying at the moment to turn into idiomatic Greek
verse the words: "The Days of Peace and Slumberous calm have fled", and
this corroboration of the statement annoyed him to the extent of
causing him to dash out and sow lines among the revellers like some
monarch scattering largesse. The junior day-room retired to its lair to
inveigh against the brutal ways of those in authority, and begin
working off the commission it had received.
The howls in the passage were the first official intimation Sheen had
received that his shortcomings were public property. The word "Funk!"
shouted through his keyhole, had not unnaturally given him an inkling
as to the state of affairs.
So Drummond had given him away, he thought. Probably he had told Linton
the whole story the moment after he, Sheen, had met the latter at the
door of the study. And perhaps he was now telling it to the rest of the
house. Of all the mixed sensations from which he suffered as he went to
his dormitory that night, one of resentment against Drummond was the
keenest.
Sheen was in the fourth dormitory, where the majority of the day-room
slept. He was in the position of a sort of extra house prefect, as far
as the dormitory was concerned. It was a large dormitory, and Mr
Seymour had fancied that it might, perhaps, be something of a handful
for a single prefect. As a matter of fact, however, Drummond, who was
in charge, had shown early in the term that he was more than capable of
managing the place single handed. He was popular and determined. The
dormitory was orderly, partly because it liked him, principally because
it had to be.
He had an opportunity of exhibiting his powers of control that night.
When Sheen came in, the room was full. Drummond was in bed, reading his
novel. The other ornaments of the dormitory were in various stages of
undress.
As Sheen appeared, a sudden hissing broke out from the farther corner
of the room. Sheen flushed, and walked to his bed. The hissing
increased in volume and richness.
"Shut up that noise," said Drummond, without looking up from his book.
The hissing diminished. Only two or three of the more reckless kept it
up.
Drummond looked across the room at them.
"Stop that noise, and get into bed," he said quietly.
The hissing ceased. He went on with his book again.
Silence reigned in dormitory four.
VI
ALBERT REDIVIVUS
By murdering in cold blood a large and respected family, and afterwards
depositing their bodies in a reservoir, one may gain, we are told, much
unpopularity in the neighbourhood of one's crime; while robbing a
church will get one cordially disliked especially by the vicar. But, to
be really an outcast, to feel that one has no friend in the world, one
must break an important public-school commandment.
Sheen had always been something of a hermit. In his most sociable
moments he had never had more than one or two friends; but he had never
before known what it meant to be completely isolated. It was like
living in a world of ghosts, or, rather, like being a ghost in a living
world. That disagreeable experience of being looked through, as if one
were invisible, comes to the average person, it may be half a dozen
times in his life. Sheen had to put up with it a hundred times a day.
People who were talking to one another stopped when he appeared and
waited until he had passed on before beginning again. Altogether, he
was made to feel that he had done for himself, that, as far as the life
of the school was concerned, he did not exist.
There had been some talk, particularly in the senior day-room, of more
active measures. It was thought that nothing less than a court-martial
could meet the case. But the house prefects had been against it. Sheen
was in the sixth, and, however monstrous and unspeakable might have
been his acts, it would hardly do to treat him as if he were a junior.
And the scheme had been definitely discouraged by Drummond, who had
stated, without wrapping the gist of his remarks in elusive phrases,
that in the event of a court-martial being held he would interview the
president of the same and knock his head off. So Seymour's had fallen
back on the punishment which from their earliest beginnings the public
schools have meted out to their criminals. They had cut Sheen dead.
In a way Sheen benefited from this excommunication. Now that he could
not even play fives, for want of an opponent, there was nothing left
for him to do but work. Fortunately, he had an object. The Gotford
would be coming on in a few weeks, and the more work he could do for
it, the better. Though Stanning was the only one of his rivals whom he
feared, and though _he_ was known to be taking very little trouble
over the matter, it was best to run as few risks as possible. Stanning
was one of those people who produce great results in their work without
seeming to do anything for them.
So Sheen shut himself up in his study and ground grimly away at his
books, and for exercise went for cross-country walks. It was a
monotonous kind of existence. For the space of a week the only
Wrykinian who spoke a single word to him was Bruce, the son of the
Conservative candidate for Wrykyn: and Bruce's conversation had been
limited to two remarks. He had said, "You might play that again, will
you?" and, later, "Thanks". He had come into the music-room while Sheen
was practising one afternoon, and had sat down, without speaking, on a
chair by the door. When Sheen had played for the second time the piece
which had won his approval, Bruce thanked him and left the room. As the
solitary break in the monotony of the week, Sheen remembered the
incident rather vividly.
Since the great rout of Albert and his minions outside Cook's, things,
as far as the seniors were concerned, had been quiet between school and
town. Linton and Dunstable had gone to and from Cook's two days in
succession without let or hindrance. It was generally believed that,
owing to the unerring way in which he had put his head in front of
Drummond's left on that memorable occasion, the scarlet-haired one was
at present dry-docked for repairs. The story in the school--it had
grown with the days--was that Drummond had laid the enemy out on the
pavement with a sickening crash, and that he had still been there at,
so to speak, the close of play. As a matter of fact, Albert was in
excellent shape, and only an unfortunate previous engagement prevented
him from ranging the streets near Cook's as before. Sir William Bruce
was addressing a meeting in another part of the town, and Albert
thought it his duty to be on hand to boo.
In the junior portion of the school the feud with the town was brisk.
Mention has been made of a certain St Jude's, between which seat of
learning and the fags of Dexter's and the School House there was a
spirited vendetta.
Jackson, of Dexter's was one of the pillars of the movement. Jackson
was
a calm-brow'd lad,
Yet mad, at moments, as a hatter,
and he derived a great deal of pleasure from warring against St Jude's.
It helped him to enjoy his meals. He slept the better for it. After a
little turn up with a Judy he was fuller of that spirit of manly
fortitude and forbearance so necessary to those whom Fate brought
frequently into contact with Mr Dexter. The Judies wore mortar-boards,
and it was an enjoyable pastime sending these spinning into space
during one of the usual _rencontres_ in the High Street. From the
fact that he and his friends were invariably outnumbered, there was a
sporting element in these affairs, though occasionally this inferiority
of numbers was the cause of his executing a scientific retreat with the
enemy harassing his men up to the very edge of the town. This had
happened on the last occasion. There had been casualties. No fewer than
six house-caps had fallen into the enemy's hands, and he himself had
been tripped up and rolled in a puddle.
He burned to avenge this disaster.
"Coming down to Cook's?" he said to his ally, Painter. It was just a
week since the Sheen episode.
"All right," said Painter.
"Suppose we go by the High Street," suggested Jackson, casually.
"Then we'd better get a few more chaps," said Painter.
A few more chaps were collected, and the party, numbering eight, set
off for the town. There were present such stalwarts as Borwick and
Crowle, both of Dexter's, and Tomlin, of the School House, a useful man
to have by you in an emergency. It was Tomlin who, on one occasion,
attacked by two terrific champions of St Jude's in a narrow passage,
had vanquished them both, and sent their mortar-boards miles into the
empyrean, so that they were never the same mortar-boards again, but
wore ever after a bruised and draggled look.
The expedition passed down the High Street without adventure, until, by
common consent, it stopped at the lofty wall which bounded the
playground of St Jude's.
From the other side of the wall came sounds of revelry, shrill
squealings and shoutings. The Judies were disporting themselves at one
of their weird games. It was known that they played touch-last, and
Scandal said that another of their favourite recreations was marbles.
The juniors at Wrykyn believed that it was to hide these excesses from
the gaze of the public that the playground wall had been made so high.
Eye-witnesses, who had peeped through the door in the said wall,
reported that what the Judies seemed to do mostly was to chase one
another about the playground, shrieking at the top of their voices.
But, they added, this was probably a mere ruse to divert suspicion.
They had almost certainly got the marbles in their pockets all the
time.
The expedition stopped, and looked itself in the face.
"How about buzzing something at them?" said Jackson earnestly.
"You can get oranges over the road," said Tomlin in his helpful way.
Jackson vanished into the shop indicated, and reappeared a few moments
later with a brown paper bag.
"It seems a beastly waste," suggested the economical Painter.
"That's all right," said Jackson, "they're all bad. The man thought I
was rotting him when I asked if he'd got any bad oranges, but I got
them at last. Give us a leg up, some one."
Willing hands urged him to the top of the wall. He drew out a green
orange, and threw it.
There was a sudden silence on the other side of the wall. Then a howl
of wrath went up to the heavens. Jackson rapidly emptied his bag.
"Got him!" he exclaimed, as the last orange sped on its way. "Look out,
they're coming!"
The expedition had begun to move off with quiet dignity, when from the
doorway in the wall there poured forth a stream of mortar-boarded
warriors, shrieking defiance. The expedition advanced to meet them.
As usual, the Judies had the advantage in numbers, and, filled to the
brim with righteous indignation, they were proceeding to make things
uncommonly warm for the invaders--Painter had lost his cap, and Tomlin
three waistcoat buttons--when the eye of Jackson, roving up and down
the street, was caught by a Seymour's cap. He was about to shout for
assistance when he perceived that the newcomer was Sheen, and
refrained. It was no use, he felt, asking Sheen for help.
But just as Sheen arrived and the ranks of the expedition were
beginning to give way before the strenuous onslaught of the Judies, the
latter, almost with one accord, turned and bolted into their playground
again. Looking round, Tomlin, that first of generals, saw the reason,
and uttered a warning.
A mutual foe had appeared. From a passage on the left of the road there
had debouched on to the field of action Albert himself and two of his
band.
The expedition flew without false shame. It is to be doubted whether
one of Albert's calibre would have troubled to attack such small game,
but it was the firm opinion of the Wrykyn fags and the Judies that he
and his men were to be avoided.
The newcomers did not pursue them. They contented themselves with
shouting at them. One of the band threw a stone.
Then they caught sight of Sheen.
Albert said, "Oo er!" and advanced at the double. His companions
followed him.
Sheen watched them come, and backed against the wall. His heart was
thumping furiously. He was in for it now, he felt. He had come down to
the town with this very situation in his mind. A wild idea of doing
something to restore his self-respect and his credit in the eyes of the
house had driven him to the High Street. But now that the crisis had
actually arrived, he would have given much to have been in his study
again.
Albert was quite close now. Sheen could see the marks which had
resulted from his interview with Drummond. With all his force Sheen hit
out, and experienced a curious thrill as his fist went home. It was a
poor blow from a scientific point of view, but Sheen's fives had given
him muscle, and it checked Albert. That youth, however, recovered
rapidly, and the next few moments passed in a whirl for Sheen. He
received a stinging blow on his left ear, and another which deprived
him of his whole stock of breath, and then he was on the ground,
conscious only of a wish to stay there for ever.
VII
MR JOE BEVAN
Almost involuntarily he staggered up to receive another blow which sent
him down again.
"That'll do," said a voice.
Sheen got up, panting. Between him and his assailant stood a short,
sturdy man in a tweed suit. He was waving Albert back, and Albert
appeared to be dissatisfied. He was arguing hotly with the newcomer.
"Now, you go away," said that worthy, mildly, "just you go away."
Albert gave it as his opinion that the speaker would do well not to
come interfering in what didn't concern him. What he wanted, asserted
Albert, was a thick ear.
"Coming pushing yourself in," added Albert querulously.
"You go away," repeated the stranger. "You go away. I don't want to
have trouble with you."
Albert's reply was to hit out with his left hand in the direction of
the speaker's face. The stranger, without fuss, touched the back of
Albert's wrist gently with the palm of his right hand, and Albert,
turning round in a circle, ended the manoeuvre with his back towards
his opponent. He faced round again irresolutely. The thing had
surprised him.
"You go away," said the other, as if he were making the observation for
the first time.
"It's Joe Bevan," said one of Albert's friends, excitedly.
Albert's jaw fell. His freckled face paled.
"You go away," repeated the man in the tweed suit, whose conversation
seemed inclined to run in a groove.
This time Albert took the advice. His friends had already taken it.
"Thanks," said Sheen.
"Beware," said Mr Bevan oracularly, "of entrance to a quarrel; but,
being in, bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee. Always counter
back when you guard. When a man shows you his right like that, always
push out your hand straight. The straight left rules the boxing world.
Feeling better, sir?"
"Yes, thanks."
"He got that right in just on the spot. I was watching. When you see a
man coming to hit you with his right like that, don't you draw back.
Get on top of him. He can't hit you then."
That feeling of utter collapse, which is the immediate result of a blow
in the parts about the waistcoat, was beginning to pass away, and Sheen
now felt capable of taking an interest in sublunary matters once more.
His ear smarted horribly, and when he put up a hand and felt it the
pain was so great that he could barely refrain from uttering a cry.
But, however physically battered he might be, he was feeling happier
and more satisfied with himself than he had felt for years. He had been
beaten, but he had fought his best, and not given in. Some portion of
his self-respect came back to him as he reviewed the late encounter.
Mr Bevan regarded him approvingly.
"He was too heavy for you," he said. "He's a good twelve stone, I make
it. I should put you at ten stone--say ten stone three. Call it nine
stone twelve in condition. But you've got pluck, sir."
Sheen opened his eyes at this surprising statement.
"Some I've met would have laid down after getting that first hit, but
you got up again. That's the secret of fighting. Always keep going on.
Never give in. You know what Shakespeare says about the one who first
cries, 'Hold, enough!' Do you read Shakespeare, sir?"
"Yes," said Sheen.
"Ah, now _he_ knew his business," said Mr Bevan enthusiastically.
"_There_ was ring-craft, as you may say. _He_ wasn't a novice."
Sheen agreed that Shakespeare had written some good things in his time.
"That's what you want to remember. Always keep going on, as the saying
is. I was fighting Dick Roberts at the National--an American, he was,
from San Francisco. He come at me with his right stretched out, and I
think he's going to hit me with it, when blessed if his left don't come
out instead, and, my Golly! it nearly knocked a passage through me.
Just where that fellow hit you, sir, he hit me. It was just at the end
of the round, and I went back to my corner. Jim Blake was seconding me.
'What's this, Jim?' I says, 'is the man mad, or what?' 'Why,' he says,
'he's left-handed, that's what's the matter. Get on top of him.' 'Get
on top of him? I says. 'My Golly, I'll get on top of the roof if he's
going to hit me another of those.' But I kept on, and got close to him,
and he couldn't get in another of them, and he give in after the
seventh round."
"What competition was that?" asked Sheen.
Mr Bevan laughed. "It was a twenty-round contest, sir, for seven-fifty
aside and the Light Weight Championship of the World."
Sheen looked at him in astonishment. He had always imagined
professional pugilists to be bullet-headed and beetle-browed to a man.
He was not prepared for one of Mr Joe Bevan's description. For all the
marks of his profession that he bore on his face, in the shape of lumps
and scars, he might have been a curate. His face looked tough, and his
eyes harboured always a curiously alert, questioning expression, as if
he were perpetually "sizing up" the person he was addressing. But
otherwise he was like other men. He seemed also to have a pretty taste
in Literature. This, combined with his strong and capable air,
attracted Sheen. Usually he was shy and ill at ease with strangers. Joe
Bevan he felt he had known all his life.
"Do you still fight?" he asked.
"No," said Mr Bevan, "I gave it up. A man finds he's getting on, as the
saying is, and it don't do to keep at it too long. I teach and I train,
but I don't fight now."
A sudden idea flashed across Sheen's mind. He was still glowing with
that pride which those who are accustomed to work with their brains
feel when they have gone honestly through some labour of the hands. At
that moment he felt himself capable of fighting the world and beating
it. The small point, that Albert had knocked him out of time in less
than a minute, did not damp him at all. He had started on the right
road. He had done something. He had stood up to his man till he could
stand no longer. An unlimited vista of action stretched before him. He
had tasted the pleasure of the fight, and he wanted more.
Why, he thought, should he not avail himself of Joe Bevan's services to
help him put himself right in the eyes of the house? At the end of the
term, shortly before the Public Schools' Competitions at Aldershot,
inter-house boxing cups were competed for at Wrykyn. It would be a
dramatic act of reparation to the house if he could win the
Light-Weight cup for it. His imagination, jumping wide gaps, did not
admit the possibility of his not being good enough to win it. In the
scene which he conjured up in his mind he was an easy victor. After
all, there was the greater part of the term to learn in, and he would
have a Champion of the World to teach him.
Mr Bevan cut in on his reflections as if he had heard them by some
process of wireless telegraphy.
"Now, look here, sir," he said, "you should let me give you a few
lessons. You're plucky, but you don't know the game as yet. And
boxing's a thing every one ought to know. Supposition is, you're
crossing a field or going down a street with your sweetheart or your
wife--"
Sheen was neither engaged nor married, but he let the point pass.
--"And up comes one of these hooligans, as they call 'em. What are you
going to do if he starts his games? Why, nothing, if you can't box. You
may be plucky, but you can't beat him. And if you beat him, you'll get
half murdered yourself. What you want to do is to learn to box, and
then what happens? Why, as soon as he sees you shaping, he says to
himself, 'Hullo, this chap knows too much for me. I'm off,' and off he
runs. Or supposition is, he comes for you. You don't mind. Not you. You
give him one punch in the right place, and then you go off to your tea,
leaving him lying there. He won't get up."
"I'd like to learn," said Sheen. "I should be awfully obliged if you'd
teach me. I wonder if you could make me any good by the end of the
term. The House Competitions come off then."
"That all depends, sir. It comes easier to some than others. If you
know how to shoot your left out straight, that's as good as six months'
teaching. After that it's all ring-craft. The straight left beats the
world."
"Where shall I find you?"
"I'm training a young chap--eight stone seven, and he's got to get down
to eight stone four, for a bantam weight match--at an inn up the river
here. I daresay you know it, sir. Or any one would tell you where it
is. The 'Blue Boar,' it's called. You come there any time you like to
name, sir, and you'll find me."