as the train began to move. Searching the left-hand column of the middle
page, as we all do when we buy the _Sportsman_ on Saturday--to
see how our names look in print, and what sort of a team the enemy has
got--he made a remarkable discovery. At the same moment Drummond, on
the other side of the carriage, did the same.
"I say," he said, "they must have had a big clear-out at Ripton. Have
you seen the team they've got out today?"
"I was just looking at it," said Barry.
"What's up with it?" inquired Allardyce. "Let's have a look."
"They've only got about half their proper team. They've got a different
back--Grey isn't playing."
"Both their centres are, though," said Drummond.
"More fun for us, Drum., old chap," said Attell. "I'm going home again.
Stop the train."
Drummond said nothing. He hated Attell most when he tried to be
facetious.
"Dunn isn't playing, nor is Waite," said Barry, "so they haven't got
either of their proper halves. I say, we might have a chance of doing
something today."
"Of course we shall," said Allardyce. "You've only got to buck up and
we've got them on toast."
The atmosphere in the carriage became charged with optimism. It seemed
a simple thing to defeat a side which was practically a Ripton "A"
team. The centre three-quarters were there still, it was true, but
Allardyce and Drummond ought to be able to prevent the halves ever
getting the ball out to them. The team looked on those two unknown
halves as timid novices, who would lose their heads at the kick-off. As
a matter of fact, the system of football teaching at Ripton was so
perfect, and the keenness so great, that the second fifteen was nearly
as good as the first every year. But the Wrykyn team did not know this,
with the exception of Allardyce, who kept his knowledge to himself; and
they arrived at Ripton jaunty and confident.
Keith, the Ripton captain, who was one of the centre three-quarters who
had made so many holes in the Wrykyn defence in the previous term, met
the team at the station, and walked up to the school with them,
carrying Allardyce's bag.
"You seem to have lost a good many men at Christmas," said Allardyce.
"We were reading the _Sportsman_ in the train. Apparently, you've
only got ten of your last term's lot. Have they all left?"
The Ripton captain grinned ruefully.
"Not much," he replied. "They're all here. All except Dunn. You
remember Dunn? Little thick-set chap who played half. He always had his
hair quite tidy and parted exactly in the middle all through the game."
"Oh, yes, I remember Dunn. What's he doing now?"
"Gone to Coopers Hill. Rot, his not going to the Varsity. He'd have
walked into his blue."
Allardyce agreed. He had marked Dunn in the match of the previous term,
and that immaculate sportsman had made things not a little warm for
him.
"Where are all the others, then?" he asked. "Where's that other half of
yours? And the rest of the forwards?"
"Mumps," said Keith.
"What!"
"It's a fact. Rot, isn't it? We've had a regular bout of it. Twenty
fellows got it altogether. Naturally, four of those were in the team.
That's the way things happen. I only wonder the whole scrum didn't have
it."
"What beastly luck," said Allardyce. "We had measles like that a couple
of years ago in the summer term, and had to play the Incogs and Zingari
with a sort of second eleven. We got mopped."
"That's what we shall get this afternoon, I'm afraid," said Keith.
"Oh, no," said Allardyce. "Of course you won't."
And, as events turned out, that was one of the truest remarks he had
ever made in his life.
* * * * *
One of the drawbacks to playing Ripton on its own ground was the crowd.
Another was the fact that one generally got beaten. But your sportsman
can put up with defeat. What he does not like is a crowd that regards
him as a subtle blend of incompetent idiot and malicious scoundrel, and
says so very loud and clear. It was not, of course, the school that did
this. They spent their time blushing for the shouters. It was the
patriotic inhabitants of Ripton town who made the school wish that they
could be saved from their friends. The football ground at Ripton was at
the edge of the school fields, separated from the road by narrow iron
railings; and along these railings the choicest spirits of the town
would line up, and smoke and yell, and spit and yell again. As
Wordsworth wrote, "There are two voices". They were on something like
the following lines.
Inside the railings: "Sch-oo-oo-oo-oo-l! Buck up Sch-oo-oo-oo-oo-l!!
Get it OUT, Schoo-oo-oo-oo-l!!!"
Outside the railings: "Gow it, Ripton! That's the way, Ripton! Twist
his good-old-English-adjectived neck, Ripton! Sit on his forcibly
described head, Ripton! Gow it, Ripton! Haw, Haw, Haw! They ain't no
use, RIPton! Kick 'im in the eye, RipTON! Haw, Haw, Haw!"
The bursts of merriment signalised the violent downfall of some
dangerous opponent.
The school loathed these humble supporters, and occasionally fastidious
juniors would go the length of throwing chunks of mud at them through
the railings. But nothing discouraged them or abated their fervid
desire to see the school win. Every year they seemed to increase in
zeal, and they were always in great form at the Wrykyn match.
It would be charitable to ascribe to this reason the gruesome
happenings of that afternoon. They needed some explaining away.
* * * * *
Allardyce won the toss, and chose to start downhill, with the wind in
his favour. It is always best to get these advantages at the beginning
of the game. If one starts against the wind, it usually changes ends at
half-time. Amidst a roar from both touch-lines and a volley of howls
from the road, a Ripton forward kicked off. The ball flew in the
direction of Stanning, on the right wing. A storm of laughter arose
from the road as he dropped it. The first scrum was formed on the
Wrykyn twenty-five line.
The Ripton forwards got the ball, and heeled with their usual neatness.
The Ripton half who was taking the scrum gathered it cleanly, and
passed to his colleague. He was a sturdy youth with a dark, rather
forbidding face, in which the acute observer might have read signs of
the savage. He was of the breed which is vaguely described at public
schools as "nigger", a term covering every variety of shade from ebony
to light lemon. As a matter of fact he was a half-caste, sent home to
England to be educated. Drummond recognised him as he dived forward to
tackle him. The last place where they had met had been the roped ring
at Aldershot. It was his opponent in the final of the Feathers.
He reached him as he swerved, and they fell together. The ball bounded
forward.
"Hullo, Peteiro," he said. "Thought you'd left."
The other grinned recognition.
"Hullo, Drummond."
"Going up to Aldershot this year?"
"Yes. Light-Weight."
"So am I."
The scrum had formed by now, and further conversation was impossible.
Drummond looked a little thoughtful as he put the ball in. He had been
told that Peteiro was leaving Ripton at Christmas. It was a nuisance
his being still at school. Drummond was not afraid of him--he would
have fought a champion of the world if the school had expected him
to--but he could not help remembering that it was only by the very
narrowest margin, and after a terrific three rounds, that he had beaten
him in the Feathers the year before. It would be too awful for words if
the decision were to be reversed in the coming competition.
But he was not allowed much leisure for pondering on the future. The
present was too full of incident and excitement. The withdrawal of the
four invalids and the departure of Dunn had not reduced the Ripton team
to that wreck of its former self which the Wrykyn fifteen had looked
for. On the contrary, their play seemed, if anything, a shade better
than it had been in the former match. There was all the old
aggressiveness, and Peteiro and his partner, so far from being timid
novices and losing their heads, eclipsed the exhibition given at Wrykyn
by Waite and Dunn. Play had only been in progress six minutes when
Keith, taking a pass on the twenty-five line, slipped past Attell, ran
round the back, and scored between the posts. Three minutes later the
other Ripton centre scored. At the end of twenty minutes the Wrykyn
line had been crossed five times, and each of the tries had been
converted.
"_Can't_ you fellows get that ball in the scrum?" demanded
Allardyce plaintively, as the team began for the fifth time the old
familiar walk to the half-way line. "Pack tight, and get the first
shove."
The result of this address was to increase the Ripton lead by four
points. In his anxiety to get the ball, one of the Wrykyn forwards
started heeling before it was in, and the referee promptly gave a free
kick to Ripton for "foot up". As this event took place within easy
reach of the Wrykyn goal, and immediately in front of the same, Keith
had no difficulty in bringing off the penalty.
By half-time the crowd in the road, hoarse with laughter, had exhausted
all their adjectives and were repeating themselves. The Ripton score
was six goals, a penalty goal, and two tries to nil, and the Wrykyn
team was a demoralised rabble.
The fact that the rate of scoring slackened somewhat after the interval
may be attributed to the disinclination of the Riptonians to exert
themselves unduly. They ceased playing in the stern and scientific
spirit in which they had started; and, instead of adhering to an
orthodox game, began to enjoy themselves. The forwards no longer heeled
like a machine. They broke through ambitiously, and tried to score on
their own account. When the outsides got as far as the back, they did
not pass. They tried to drop goals. In this way only twenty-two points
were scored after half-time. Allardyce and Drummond battled on nobly,
but with their pack hopelessly outclassed it was impossible for them to
do anything of material use. Barry, on the wing, tackled his man
whenever the latter got the ball, but, as a rule, the centres did not
pass, but attacked by themselves. At last, by way of a fitting
conclusion to the rout, the Ripton back, catching a high punt, ran
instead of kicking, and, to the huge delight of the town contingent,
scored. With this incident the visiting team drained the last dregs of
the bitter cup. Humiliation could go no further. Almost immediately
afterwards the referee blew his whistle for "No side".
"Three cheers for Wrykyn," said Keith.
To the fifteen victims it sounded ironical.
XVI
DRUMMOND GOES INTO RETIREMENT
The return journey of a school team after a crushing defeat in a
foreign match is never a very exhilarating business. Those members of
the side who have not yet received their colours are wondering which of
them is to be sacrificed to popular indignation and "chucked": the
rest, who have managed to get their caps, are feeling that even now
two-thirds of the school will be saying that they are not worth a place
in the third fifteen; while the captain, brooding apart, is becoming
soured at the thought that Posterity will forget what little good he
may have done, and remember only that it was in his year that the
school got so many points taken off them by So-and-So. Conversation
does not ripple and sparkle during these home-comings. The Wrykyn team
made the journey in almost unbroken silence. They were all stiff and
sore, and their feelings were such as to unfit them for talking to
people.
The school took the thing very philosophically--a bad sign. When a
school is in a healthy, normal condition, it should be stirred up by a
bad defeat by another school, like a disturbed wasps' nest. Wrykyn made
one or two remarks about people who could not play footer for toffee,
and then let the thing drop.
Sheen was too busy with his work and his boxing to have much leisure
for mourning over this latest example of the present inefficiency of
the school. The examination for the Gotford was to come off in two
days, and the inter-house boxing was fixed for the following Wednesday.
In five days, therefore, he would get his chance of retrieving his lost
place in the school. He was certain that he could, at any rate make a
very good show against anyone in the school, even Drummond. Joe Bevan
was delighted with his progress, and quoted Shakespeare volubly in his
admiration. Jack Bruce and Francis added their tribute, and the knife
and boot boy paid him the neatest compliment of all by refusing
point-blank to have any more dealings with him whatsoever. His
professional duties, explained the knife and boot boy, did not include
being punched in the heye by blokes, and he did not intend to be put
upon.
"You'll do all right," said Jack Bruce, as they were motoring home, "if
they'll let you go in for it all. But how do you know they will? Have
they chosen the men yet?"
"Not yet. They don't do it till the day before. But there won't be any
difficulty about that. Drummond will let me have a shot if he thinks
I'm good enough."
"Oh, you're good enough," said Bruce.
And when, on Monday evening, Francis, on receipt of no fewer than four
blows in a single round--a record, shook him by the hand and said that
if ever he happened to want a leetle darg that was a perfect bag of
tricks and had got a pedigree, mind you, he, Francis, would be proud to
supply that animal, Sheen felt that the moment had come to approach
Drummond on the subject of the house boxing. It would be a little
awkward at first, and conversation would probably run somewhat stiffly;
but all would be well once he had explained himself.
But things had been happening in his absence which complicated the
situation. Allardyce was having tea with Drummond, who had been
stopping in with a sore throat. He had come principally to make
arrangements for the match between his house and Seymour's in the
semi-final round of the competition.
"You're looking bad," he said, taking a seat.
"I'm feeling bad," said Drummond. For the past few days he had been
very much out of sorts. He put it down to a chill caught after the
Ripton match. He had never mustered up sufficient courage to sponge
himself with cold water after soaking in a hot bath, and he
occasionally suffered for it.
"What's up?" inquired Allardyce.
"Oh, I don't know. Sort of beastly feeling. Sore throat. Nothing much.
Only it makes you feel rather rotten."
Allardyce looked interested.
"I say," he said, "it looks as if--I wonder. I hope you haven't."
"What?"
"Mumps. It sounds jolly like it."
"Mumps! Of course I've not. Why should I?"
Allardyce produced a letter from his pocket. "I got this from Keith,
the Ripton captain, this morning. You know they've had a lot of the
thing there. Oh, didn't you? That was why they had such a bad team
out."
"Bad team!" murmured Drummond.
"Well, I mean not their best team. They had four of their men down with
mumps. Here's what Keith says. Listen. Bit about hoping we got back all
right, and so on, first. Then he says--here it is, 'Another of our
fellows has got the mumps. One of the forwards; rather a long man who
was good out of touch. He developed it a couple of days after the
match. It's lucky that all our card games are over. We beat John's,
Oxford, last Wednesday, and that finished the card. But it'll rather
rot up the House matches. We should have walked the cup, but there's no
knowing what will happen now. I hope none of your lot caught the mumps
from Browning during the game. It's quite likely, of course. Browning
ought not to have been playing, but I had no notion that there was
anything wrong with him. He never said he felt bad.' You've got it,
Drummond. That's what's the matter with you."
"Oh, rot," said Drummond. "It's only a chill."
But the school doctor, who had looked in at the house to dose a small
Seymourite who had indulged too heartily in the pleasures of the table,
had other views, and before lock-up Drummond was hurried off to the
infirmary.
Sheen went to Drummond's study after preparation had begun, and was
surprised to find him out. Not being on speaking terms with a single
member of the house, he was always out-of-date as regarded items of
school news. As a rule he had to wait until Jack Bruce told him before
learning of any occurrence of interest. He had no notion that mumps was
the cause of Drummond's absence, and he sat and waited patiently for
him in his study till the bell rang for prayers. The only possible
explanation that occurred to him was that Drummond was in somebody
else's study, and he could not put his theory to the test by going and
looking. It was only when Drummond did not put in an appearance at
prayers that Sheen began to suspect that something might have happened.
It was maddening not to be able to make inquiries. He had almost
decided to go and ask Linton, and risk whatever might be the
consequences of such a step, when he remembered that the matron must
know. He went to her, and was told that Drummond was in the infirmary.
He could not help seeing that this made his position a great deal more
difficult. In ten minutes he could have explained matters to Drummond
if he had found him in his study. But it would be a more difficult task
to put the thing clearly in a letter.
Meanwhile, it was bed-time, and he soon found his hands too full with
his dormitory to enable him to think out the phrasing of that letter.
The dormitory, which was recruited entirely from the junior day-room,
had heard of Drummond's departure with rejoicings. They liked Drummond,
but he was a good deal too fond of the iron hand for their tastes. A
night with Sheen in charge should prove a welcome change.
A deafening uproar was going on when Sheen arrived, and as he came into
the room somebody turned the gas out. He found some matches on the chest
of drawers, and lit it again just in time to see a sportive youth tearing
the clothes off his bed and piling them on the floor. A month before he
would not have known how to grapple with such a situation, but his
evenings with Joe Bevan had given him the habit of making up his mind
and acting rapidly. Drummond was wont to keep a swagger-stick by his
bedside for the better observance of law and order. Sheen possessed
himself of this swagger-stick, and reasoned with the sportive youth.
The rest of the dormitory looked on in interested silence. It was a
critical moment, and on his handling of it depended Sheen's victory or
defeat. If he did not keep his head he was lost. A dormitory is
merciless to a prefect whose weakness they have discovered.
Sheen kept his head. In a quiet, pleasant voice, fingering the
swagger-stick, as he spoke, in an absent manner, he requested his young
friend to re-make the bed--rapidly and completely. For the space of
five minutes no sound broke the silence except the rustle of sheets and
blankets. At the end of that period the bed looked as good as new.
"Thanks," said Sheen gratefully. "That's very kind of you."
He turned to the rest of the dormitory.
"Don't let me detain you," he said politely. "Get into bed as soon as
you like."
The dormitory got into bed sooner than they liked. For some reason the
colossal rag they had planned had fizzled out. They were thoughtful as
they crept between the sheets. Could these things be?
* * * * *
After much deliberation Sheen sent his letter to Drummond on the
following day. It was not a long letter, but it was carefully worded.
It explained that he had taken up boxing of late, and ended with a
request that he might be allowed to act as Drummond's understudy in the
House competitions.
It was late that evening when the infirmary attendant came over with
the answer.
Like the original letter, the answer was brief.
"Dear Sheen," wrote Drummond, "thanks for the offer. I am afraid I
can't accept it. We must have the best man. Linton is going to box for
the House in the Light-Weights."
XVII
SEYMOUR'S ONE SUCCESS
This polite epistle, it may be mentioned, was a revised version of the
one which Drummond originally wrote in reply to Sheen's request. His
first impulse had been to answer in the four brief words, "Don't be a
fool"; for Sheen's letter had struck him as nothing more than a
contemptible piece of posing, and he had all the hatred for poses which
is a characteristic of the plain and straightforward type of mind. It
seemed to him that Sheen, as he expressed it to himself, was trying to
"do the boy hero". In the school library, which had been stocked during
the dark ages, when that type of story was popular, there were numerous
school stories in which the hero retrieved a rocky reputation by
thrashing the bully, displaying in the encounter an intuitive but
overwhelming skill with his fists. Drummond could not help feeling that
Sheen must have been reading one of these stories. It was all very fine
and noble of him to want to show that he was No Coward After All, like
Leo Cholmondeley or whatever his beastly name was, in _The Lads of
St. Ethelberta's_ or some such piffling book; but, thought Drummond
in his cold, practical way, what about the house? If Sheen thought that
Seymour's was going to chuck away all chance of winning one of the
inter-house events, simply in order to give him an opportunity of doing
the Young Hero, the sooner he got rid of that sort of idea, the better.
If he wanted to do the Leo Cholmondeley business, let him go and chuck
a kid into the river, and jump in and save him. But he wasn't going to
have the house let in for twenty Sheens.
Such were the meditations of Drummond when the infirmary attendant
brought Sheen's letter to him; and he seized pencil and paper and
wrote, "Don't be a fool". But pity succeeded contempt, and he tore up
the writing. After all, however much he had deserved it, the man had
had a bad time. It was no use jumping on him. And at one time they had
been pals. Might as well do the thing politely.
All of which reflections would have been prevented had Sheen thought of
mentioning the simple fact that it was Joe Bevan who had given him the
lessons to which he referred in his letter. But he had decided not to
do so, wishing to avoid long explanations. And there was, he felt, a
chance that the letter might come into other hands than those of
Drummond. So he had preserved silence on that point, thereby wrecking
his entire scheme.
It struck him that he might go to Linton, explain his position, and ask
him to withdraw in his favour, but there were difficulties in the way
of that course. There is a great deal of red tape about the athletic
arrangements of a house at a public school. When once an order has gone
forth, it is difficult to get it repealed. Linton had been chosen to
represent the house in the Light-Weights, and he would carry out
orders. Only illness would prevent him appearing in the ring.
Sheen made up his mind not to try to take his place, and went through
the days a victim to gloom, which was caused by other things besides
his disappointment respecting the boxing competition. The Gotford
examination was over now, and he was not satisfied with his
performance. Though he did not know it, his dissatisfaction was due
principally to the fact that, owing to his isolation, he had been
unable to compare notes after the examinations with the others. Doing
an examination without comparing notes subsequently with one's rivals,
is like playing golf against a bogey. The imaginary rival against whom
one pits oneself never makes a mistake. Our own "howlers" stand out in
all their horrid nakedness; but we do not realise that our rivals have
probably made others far worse. In this way Sheen plumbed the depths of
depression. The Gotford was a purely Classical examination, with the
exception of one paper, a General Knowledge paper; and it was in this
that Sheen fancied he had failed so miserably. His Greek and Latin
verse were always good; his prose, he felt, was not altogether beyond
the pale; but in the General Knowledge paper he had come down heavily.
As a matter of fact, if he had only known, the paper was an
exceptionally hard one, and there was not a single candidate for the
scholarship who felt satisfied with his treatment of it. It was to
questions ten, eleven, and thirteen of this paper that Cardew, of the
School House, who had entered for the scholarship for the sole reason
that competitors got excused two clear days of ordinary school-work,
wrote the following answer:
See "Encylopaedia Britannica," _Times_ edition.
If they really wanted to know, he said subsequently, that was the
authority to go to. He himself would probably misinform them
altogether.