Chapter 7

'Certainly not. Look here, there's a train starts from Stapleton at three. I can catch that all right. Gets to Rutton at three-twenty. Sports begin at three-fifteen. At least, they are supposed to. Over before five, I should think. At least, my race will be, though I must stop to see the Oldest Inhabitant's nevvy win the egg and spoon canter. But that ought to come on before the strangers' race. Train back at a quarter past five. Arrives at a quarter to six. Lock up six-fifteen. That gives me half an hour to get here from Stapleton. What more do you want? I shall do it easily, and ... the odds against my being booked are about twenty-five to one. At which price if any gent present cares to deposit his money, I am willing to take him. Now I'll treat you to a tune, if you're good.'

He went to the cupboard and produced his gramophone. Charteris's musical instruments had at one time been strictly suppressed by the authorities, and, in consequence, he had laid in a considerable stock of them. At last, when he discovered that there was no rule against the use of musical instruments in the House, Merevale had yielded. The stipulation that Charteris should play only before prep. was rigidly observed, except when Merevale was over at the Hall, and the Sixth had no work. On such occasions Charteris felt justified in breaking through the rule. He had a gramophone, a banjo, a penny whistle, and a mouth organ. The banjo, which he played really well, was the most in request, but the gramophone was also popular.

'Turn on "Whistling Rufus",' observed Thomson.

'Whistling Rufus' was duly turned on, giving way after an encore to 'Bluebells'.

'I always weep when I hear this,' said Tony.

'It _is_ beautiful, isn't it?' said Charteris.

I'll be your sweetheart, if you--will be--mine, All my life, I'll be your valentine. Bluebells I've gathered--grrhhrh.

The needle of the gramophone, after the manner of its kind, slipped raspingly over the surface of the wax, and the rest of the ballad was lost.

'That,' said Charteris, 'is how I feel with regard to the Old Man. I'd be his sweetheart, if he'd be mine. But he makes no advances, and the stain on my scutcheon is not yet wiped out. I must say I haven't tried gathering bluebells for him yet, nor have I offered my services as a perpetual valentine, but I've been very kind to him in other ways.'

'Is he still down on you?' asked the Babe.

'He hasn't done much lately. We're in a state of truce at present. Did I tell you how I scored about Stapleton?'

'You've only told us about a hundred times,' said the Babe brutally. 'I tell you what, though, he'll score off you if he finds you going to Rutton.'

'Let's hope he won't.'

'He won't,' said Welch suddenly.

'Why?'

'Because you won't go. I'll bet you anything you like that you won't go.'

That settled Charteris. It was the sort of remark that always acted on him like a tonic. He had been intending to go all the time, but it was this speech of Welch's that definitely clinched the matter. One of his mottoes for everyday use was 'Let not thyself be scored off by Welch.'

'That's all right,' he said. 'Of course I shall go. What's the next item you'd like on this machine?'

The day of the sports arrived, and the Babe, meeting Charteris at Merevale's gate, made a last attempt to head him off from his purpose.

'How are you going to take your things?' he asked. 'You can't carry a bag. The first beak you met would ask questions.'

If he had hoped that this would be a crushing argument, he was disappointed.

Charteris patted a bloated coat pocket.

'Bags,' he said laconically. 'Vest,' he added, doing the same to his other pocket. 'Shoes,' he concluded, 'you will observe I am carrying in a handy brown paper parcel, and if anybody wants to know what's in it, I shall tell them it's acid drops. Sure you won't come, too?'

'Quite, thanks.'

'All right. So long then. Be good while I'm gone.'

And he passed on down the road that led to Stapleton.

The Rutton Recreation Ground presented, as the _Stapleton Herald_ justly remarked in its next week's issue, 'a gay and animated appearance'. There was a larger crowd than Charteris had expected. He made his way through them, resisting without difficulty the entreaties of a hoarse gentleman in a check suit to have three to two on 'Enery something for the hundred yards, and came at last to the dressing-tent.

At this point it occurred to him that it would be judicious to find out when his race was to start. It was rather a chilly day, and the less time he spent in the undress uniform of shorts the better. He bought a correct card for twopence, and scanned it. The strangers' mile was down for four-fifty. There was no need to change for an hour yet. He wished the authorities could have managed to date the event earlier.

Four-fifty was running it rather fine. The race would be over by about five to five, and it was a walk of some ten minutes to the station, less if he hurried. That would give him ten minutes for recovering from the effects of the race, and changing back into his ordinary clothes again. It would be quick work. But, having come so far, he was not inclined to go back without running in the race. He would never be able to hold his head up again if he did that. He left the dressing-tent, and started on a tour of the field.

The scene was quite different from anything he had ever witnessed before in the way of sports. The sports at St Austin's were decorous to a degree. These leaned more to the rollickingly convivial. It was like an ordinary race-meeting, except that men were running instead of horses. Rutton was a quiet little place for the majority of the year, but it woke up on this day, and was evidently out to enjoy itself. The Rural Hooligan was a good deal in evidence, and though he was comparatively quiet just at present, the frequency with which he visited the various refreshment stalls that dotted the ground gave promise of livelier times in the future. Charteris felt that the afternoon would not be dull.

The hour soon passed, and Charteris, having first seen the Oldest Inhabitant's nevvy romp home in the egg and spoon event, took himself off to the dressing-tent, and began to get into his running clothes. The bell for his race was just ringing when he left the tent. He trotted over to the starting place.

Apparently there was not a very large 'field'. Two weedy-looking youths of about Charteris's age, dressed in blushing pink, put in an appearance, and a very tall, thin man came up almost immediately afterwards. Charteris had just removed his coat, and was about to get to his place on the line, when another competitor arrived, and, to judge by the applause that greeted his appearance, he was evidently a favourite in the locality. It was with shock that Charteris recognized his old acquaintance, the Bargees' secretary.

He was clad in running clothes of a bright orange and a smile of conscious superiority, and when somebody in the crowd called out 'Go it, Jarge!' he accepted the tribute as his due, and waved a condescending hand in the speaker's direction.

Some moments elapsed before he recognized Charteris, and the latter had time to decide upon his line of action. If he attempted concealment in any way, the man would recognize that on this occasion, at any rate, he had, to use an adequate if unclassical expression, got the bulge, and then there would be trouble. By brazening things out, however, there was just a chance that he might make him imagine that there was more in the matter than met the eye, and that, in some mysterious way, he had actually obtained leave to visit Rutton that day. After all, the man didn't know very much about School rules, and the recollection of the recent fiasco in which he had taken part would make him think twice about playing the amateur policeman again, especially in connection with Charteris.

So he smiled genially, and expressed a hope that the man enjoyed robust health.

The man replied by glaring in a simple and unaffected manner.

'Looked up the Headmaster lately?' asked Charteris.

'What are you doing here?'

'I'm going to run. Hope you don't mind.'

'You're out of bounds.'

'That's what you said before. You'd better enquire a bit before you make rash statements. Otherwise, there's no knowing what may happen. Perhaps Mr Dacre has given me leave.'

The man said something objurgatory under his breath, but forbore to continue the discussion. He was wondering, as Charteris had expected that he would, whether the latter had really got leave or not. It was a difficult problem.

Whether such a result was due to his mental struggles, or whether it was simply to be attributed to his poor running, is open to question, but the fact remains that the secretary of the Old Crockfordians did not shine in the strangers' mile. He came in last but one, vanquishing the pink sportsman by a foot. Charteris, after a hot finish, was beaten on the tape by one of the weedy youths, who exhibited astounding sprinting powers in the last two hundred yards, overhauling Charteris, who had led all the time, in fine style, and scoring what the _Stapleton Herald_ described as a 'highly popular victory'.

As soon as he had recovered his normal stock of wind--which was not immediately--it was borne in upon Charteris that if he wanted to catch the five-fifteen back to Stapleton, he had better be beginning to change. He went to the dressing-tent, and on examining his watch was horrified to find that he had just ten minutes in which to do everything, and the walk to the station, he reflected, was a long five minutes. He literally hurled himself into his clothes, and, disregarding the Bargee, who had entered the tent and seemed to wish to continue the discussion at the point where they had left off, shot off towards the gate nearest the station. He had exactly four minutes and twenty-five seconds in which to complete the journey, and he had just run a mile.

_Chapter 5_

Fortunately the road was mainly level. On the other hand, he was hampered by an overcoat. After the first hundred yards he took this off, and carried it in an unwieldy parcel. This, he found, answered admirably. Running became easier. He had worked the stiffness out of his legs by this time, and was going well. Three hundred yards from the station it was anybody's race. The exact position of the other competitor, the train, could not be defined. It was at any rate not yet within earshot, which meant that it still had at least a quarter of a mile to go. Charteris considered that he had earned a rest. He slowed down to a walk, but after proceeding at this pace for a few yards, thought that he heard a distant whistle, and dashed on again. Suddenly a raucous bellow of laughter greeted his ears from a spot in front of him, hidden from his sight by a bend in the road.

'Somebody slightly tight,' thought Charteris, rapidly diagnosing the case. 'By Jove, if he comes rotting about with me I'll kill him.' Having to do anything in a desperate hurry always made Charteris's temper slightly villainous. He turned the corner at a sharp trot, and came upon two youths who seemed to be engaged in the harmless occupation of trying to ride a bicycle. They were of the type which he held in especial aversion, the Rural Hooligan type, and one at least of the two had evidently been present at a recent circulation of the festive bowl. He was wheeling the bicycle about the road in an aimless manner, and looked as if he wondered what was the matter with it that it would not stay in the same place for two consecutive seconds. The other youth was apparently of the 'Charles-his-friend' variety, content to look on and applaud, and generally to play chorus to his companion's 'lead'. He was standing at the side of the road, smiling broadly in a way that argued feebleness of mind. Charteris was not quite sure which of the two types he loathed the more. He was inclined to call it a tie.

However, there seemed to be nothing particularly lawless in what they were doing now. If they were content to let him pass without hindrance, he, for his part, was content generously to overlook the insult they offered him in daring to exist, and to maintain a state of truce. But, as he drew nearer, he saw that there was more in this business than the casual spectator might at first have supposed. A second and keener inspection of the reptiles revealed fresh phenomena. In the first place, the bicycle which Hooligan number one was playing with was a lady's bicycle, and a small one at that. Now, up to the age of fourteen and the weight of ten stone, a beginner at cycling often finds it more convenient to learn to ride on a lady's machine than on a gentleman's. The former offers greater facilities for rapid dismounting, a quality not to be despised in the earlier stages of initiation. But, though this is undoubtedly the case, and though Charteris knew that it was so, yet he felt instinctively that there was something wrong here. Hooligans of twenty years and twelve stone do not learn to ride on small ladies' machines, or, if they do, it is probably without the permission of the small lady who owns the same. Valuable as his time was, Charteris felt that it behoved him to spend a thoughtful minute or so examining into this affair. He slowed down once again to a walk, and, as he did so, his eye fell upon the character in the drama whose absence had puzzled him, the owner of the bicycle. And from that moment he felt that life would be a hollow mockery if he failed to fall upon those revellers and slay them. She stood by the hedge on the right, a forlorn little figure in grey, and she gazed sadly and helplessly at the manoeuvres that were going on in the middle of the road. Her age Charteris put down at a venture at twelve--a correct guess. Her state of mind he also conjectured. She was letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would', like the late Macbeth, the cat i' the adage, and numerous other celebrities. She evidently had plenty of remarks to make on the subject in hand, but refrained from motives of prudence.

Charteris had no such scruples. The feeling of fatigue that had been upon him had vanished, and his temper, which had been growing steadily worse for some twenty minutes, now boiled over gleefully at the prospect of something solid to work itself off upon. Even without a cause Charteris detested the Rural Hooligan. Now that a real, copper-bottomed motive for this dislike had been supplied to him, he felt himself capable of dealing with a whole regiment of the breed. The criminal with the bicycle had just let it fall with a crash to the ground when Charteris went for him low, in the style which the Babe always insisted on seeing in members of the First Fifteen on the football field, and hove him without comment into a damp ditch. 'Charles his friend' uttered a shout of disapproval and rushed into the fray. Charteris gave him the straight left, of the type to which the great John Jackson is reported to have owed so much in the days of the old Prize Ring, and Charles, taking it between the eyes, stopped in a discouraged and discontented manner, and began to rub the place. Whereupon Charteris dashed in, and, to use an expression suitable to the deed, 'swung his right at the mark'. The 'mark', it may be explained for the benefit of the non-pugilistic, is that portion of the anatomy which lies hid behind the third button of the human waistcoat. It covers--in a most inadequate way--the wind, and even a gentle tap in the locality is apt to produce a fleeting sense of discomfort. A genuine flush hit on the spot, shrewdly administered by a muscular arm with the weight of the body behind it, causes the passive agent in the transaction to wish fervently, as far as he is at the moment physically capable of wishing anything, that he had never been born. 'Charles his friend' collapsed like an empty sack, and Charteris, getting a grip of the outlying portions of his costume, dragged him to the ditch and rolled him in on top of his friend, who had just recovered sufficiently to be thinking about getting out again. The pair of them lay there in a tangled heap. Charteris picked up the bicycle and gave it a cursory examination. The enamel was a good deal scratched, but no material damage had been done. He wheeled it across to its owner.

'It isn't much hurt,' he said, as they walked on slowly together. 'Bit scratched, that's all.'

'Thanks _awfully_,' said the small lady.

'Oh, not at all,' replied Charteris. 'I enjoyed it.' (He felt he had said the right thing there. Your real hero always 'enjoys it'.) 'I'm sorry those bargees frightened you.'

'They did rather. But'--she added triumphantly after a pause--'I didn't cry.'

'Rather not,' said Charteris. 'You were awfully plucky. I noticed. But hadn't you better ride on? Which way were you going?'

'I wanted to get to Stapleton.'

'Oh. That's simple enough. You've merely got to go straight on down this road, as straight as ever you can go. But, look here, you know, you shouldn't be out alone like this. It isn't safe. Why did they let you?'

The lady avoided his eye. She bent down and inspected the left pedal.

'They shouldn't have sent you out alone,' said Charteris, 'why did they?'

'They--they didn't. I came.'

There was a world of meaning in the phrase. Charteris felt that he was in the same case. They had not let _him_. He had come. Here was a kindred spirit, another revolutionary soul, scorning the fetters of convention and the so-called authority of self-constituted rules, aha! Bureaucrats!

'Shake hands,' he said, 'I'm in just the same way.'

They shook hands gravely.

'You know,' said the lady, 'I'm awfully sorry I did it now. It was very naughty.'

'I'm not sorry yet,' said Charteris, 'I'm rather glad than otherwise. But I expect I shall be sorry before long.'

'Will you be sent to bed?'

'I don't think so.'

'Will you have to learn beastly poetry?'

'Probably not.'

She looked at him curiously, as if to enquire, 'then if you won't have to learn poetry and you won't get sent to bed, what on earth is there for you to worry about?'

She would probably have gone on to investigate the problem further, but at that moment there came the sound of a whistle. Then another, closer this time. Then a faint rumbling, which increased in volume steadily. Charteris looked back. The railway line ran by the side of the road. He could see the smoke of a train through the trees. It was quite close now, and coming closer every minute, and he was still quite a hundred and fifty yards from the station gates.

'I say,' he cried. 'Great Scott, here comes my train. I must rush. Good-bye. You keep straight on.'

His legs had had time to grow stiff again. For the first few strides running was painful. But his joints soon adapted themselves to the strain, and in ten seconds he was sprinting as fast as he had ever sprinted off the running-track. When he had travelled a quarter of the distance the small cyclist overtook him.

'Be quick,' she said, 'it's just in sight.'

Charteris quickened his stride, and, paced by the bicycle, spun along in fine style. Forty yards from the station the train passed him. He saw it roll into the station. There were still twenty yards to go, exclusive of the station's steps, and he was already running as fast as it lay in him to run. Now there were only ten. Now five. And at last, with a hurried farewell to his companion, he bounded up the steps and on to the platform. At the end of the platform the line took a sharp curve to the left. Round that curve the tail end of the guard's van was just disappearing.

'Missed it, sir,' said the solitary porter, who managed things at Rutton, cheerfully. He spoke as if he was congratulating Charteris on having done something remarkably clever.

'When's the next?' panted Charteris.

'Eight-thirty,' was the porter's appalling reply.

For a moment Charteris felt quite ill. No train till eight-thirty! Then was he indeed lost. But it couldn't be true. There must be some sort of a train between now and then.

'Are you certain?' he said. 'Surely there's a train before that?'

'Why, yes, sir,' said the porter gleefully, 'but they be all exprusses. Eight-thirty be the only 'un what starps at Rootton.'

'Thanks,' said Charteris with marked gloom, 'I don't think that'll be much good to me. My aunt, what a hole I'm in.'

The porter made a sympathetic and interrogative noise at the back of his throat, as if inviting him to explain everything. But Charteris felt unequal to conversation. There are moments when one wants to be alone. He went down the steps again. When he got out into the road, his small cycling friend had vanished. Charteris was conscious of a feeling of envy towards her. She was doing the journey comfortably on a bicycle. He would have to walk it. Walk it! He didn't believe he could. The strangers' mile, followed by the Homeric combat with the two Hooligans and that ghastly sprint to wind up with, had left him decidedly unfit for further feats of pedestrianism. And it was eight miles to Stapleton, if it was a yard, and another mile from Stapleton to St Austin's. Charteris, having once more invoked the name of his aunt, pulled himself together with an effort, and limped gallantly on in the direction of Stapleton. But fate, so long hostile to him, at last relented. A rattle of wheels approached him from behind. A thrill of hope shot through him at the sound. There was the prospect of a lift. He stopped, and waited for the dog-cart--it sounded like a dog-cart--to arrive. Then he uttered a shout of rapture, and began to wave his arms like a semaphore. The man in the dog-cart was Dr Adamson.

'Hullo, Charteris,' said the Doctor, pulling up his horse, 'what are you doing here?'

'Give me a lift,' said Charteris, 'and I'll tell you. It's a long yarn. Can I get in?'

'Come along. Plenty of room.'

Charteris climbed up, and sank on to the cushioned seat with a sigh of pleasure. What glorious comfort. He had never enjoyed anything more in his life.

'I'm nearly dead,' he said, as the dog-cart went on again. 'This is how it all happened. You see, it was this way--'

And he embarked forthwith upon his narrative.

_Chapter 6_

By special request the Doctor dropped Charteris within a hundred yards of Merevale's door.

'Good-night,' he said. 'I don't suppose you will value my advice at all, but you may have it for what it is worth. I recommend you stop this sort of game. Next time something will happen.'

'By Jove, yes,' said Charteris, climbing painfully down from the dog-cart, 'I'll take that advice. I'm a reformed character from this day onwards. This sort of thing isn't good enough. Hullo, there's the bell for lock-up. Good-night, Doctor, and thanks most awfully for the lift. It was frightfully kind of you.'

'Don't mention it,' said Dr Adamson, 'it is always a privilege to be in your company. When are you coming to tea with me again?'

'Whenever you'll have me. I must get leave, though, this time.'

'Yes. By the way, how's Graham? It is Graham, isn't it? The fellow who broke his collar-bone?'

'Oh, he's getting on splendidly. Still in a sling, but it's almost well again now. But I must be off. Good-night.'

'Good-night. Come to tea next Monday.'

'Right,' said Charteris; 'thanks awfully.'

He hobbled in at Merevale's gate, and went up to his study. The Babe was in there talking to Welch.

'Hullo,' said the Babe, 'here's Charteris.'

'What's left of him,' said Charteris.

'How did it go off?'

'Don't, please.'

'Did you win?' asked Welch.

'No. Second. By a yard. Oh, Lord, I am dead.'

'Hot race?'

'Rather. It wasn't that, though. I had to sprint all the way to the station, and missed my train by ten seconds at the end of it all.'

'Then how did you get here?'