Chapter 8

'That was the one stroke of luck I've had this afternoon. I started to walk back, and after I'd gone about a quarter of a mile, Adamson caught me up in his dog-cart. I suggested that it would be a Christian act on his part to give me a lift, and he did. I shall remember Adamson in my will.'

'Tell us what happened.'

'I'll tell thee everything I can,' said Charteris. 'There's little to relate. I saw an aged, aged man a-sitting on a gate. Where do you want me to begin?'

'At the beginning. Don't rot.'

'I was born,' began Charteris, 'of poor but honest parents, who sent me to school at an early age in order that I might acquire a grasp of the Greek and Latin languages, now obsolete. I--'

'How did you lose?' enquired the Babe.

'The other man beat me. If he hadn't, I should have won hands down. Oh, I say, guess who I met at Rutton.'

'Not a beak?'

'No. Almost as bad, though. The Bargee man who paced me from Stapleton. Man who crocked Tony.'

'Great _Scott_!' cried the Babe. 'Did he recognize you?'

'Rather. We had a very pleasant conversation.'

'If he reports you,' began the Babe.

'Who's that?'

Charteris looked up. Tony Graham had entered the study.

'Hullo, Tony! Adamson told me to remember him to you.'

'So you've got back?'

Charteris confirmed the hasty guess.

'But what are you talking about, Babe?' said Tony. 'Who's going to be reported, and who's going to report?'

The Babe briefly explained the situation.

'If the man,' he said, 'reports Charteris, he may get run in tomorrow, and then we shall have both our halves away against Dacre's. Charteris, you are a fool to go rotting about out of bounds like this.'

'Nay, dry the starting tear,' said Charteris cheerfully. 'In the first place, I shouldn't get kept in on a Thursday anyhow. I should be shoved into extra on Saturday. Also, I shrewdly conveyed to the Bargee the impression that I was at Rutton by special permission.'

'He's bound to know that that can't be true,' said Tony.

'Well, I told him to think it over. You see, he got so badly left last time he tried to compass my downfall, that I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he let the job alone this journey.'

'Let's hope so,' said the Babe gloomily.

'That's right, Babby,' remarked Charteris encouragingly, nodding at the pessimist.

'You buck up and keep looking on the bright side. It'll be all right. You see if it won't. If there's any running in to be done, I shall do it. I shall be frightfully fit tomorrow after all this dashing about today. I haven't an ounce of superfluous flesh on me. I'm a fine, strapping specimen of sturdy young English manhood. And I'm going to play a _very_ selfish game tomorrow, Babe.'

'Oh, my dear chap, you mustn't.' The Babe's face wore an expression of horror. The success of the House-team in the final was very near to his heart. He could not understand anyone jesting on the subject. Charteris respected his anguish, and relieved it speedily.

'I was only ragging,' he said. 'Considering that our three-quarter line is our one strong point, I'm not likely to keep the ball from it, if I get a chance of getting it out. Make your mind easy, Babe.'

The final House-match was always a warmish game. The rivalry between the various Houses was great, and the football cup especially was fought for with immense keenness. Also, the match was the last fixture of the season, and there was a certain feeling in the teams that if they _did_ happen to disable a man or two, it would not matter much. The injured sportsman would not be needed for School-match purposes for another six months. As a result of which philosophical reflection, the tackling was ruled slightly energetic, and the handing-off was done with vigour.

This year, to add a sort of finishing touch, there was just a little ill-feeling between Dacre's and Merevale's. The cause of it was the Babe. Until the beginning of the term he had been a day boy. Then the news began to circulate that he was going to become a boarder, either at Dacre's or at Merevale's. He chose the latter, and Dacre's felt slightly aggrieved. Some of the less sportsmanlike members of the House had proposed that a protest should be made against his being allowed to play, but, fortunately for the credit of Dacre's, Prescott, the captain of the House Fifteen, had put his foot down with an emphatic bang at the suggestion. As he sagely pointed out, there were some things which were bad form, and this was one of them. If the team wanted to express their disapproval, said he, let them do it on the field by tackling their very hardest. He personally was going to do his best, and he advised them to do the same.

The rumour of this bad blood had got about the School in some mysterious manner, and when Swift, Merevale's only First Fifteen forward, kicked off up the hill, a large crowd was lining the ropes. It was evident from the outset that it would be a good game.

Dacre's were the better side--as a team. They had no really weak spot. But Merevale's extraordinarily strong three-quarter line somewhat made up for an inferior scrum. And the fact that the Babe was in the centre was worth much.

At first Dacre's pressed. Their pack was unusually heavy for a House-team, and they made full use of it. They took the ball down the field in short rushes till they were in Merevale's twenty-five. Then they began to heel, and, if things had been more or less exciting for the Merevalians before, they became doubly so now. The ground was dry, and so was the ball, and the game consequently waxed fast. Time after time the ball went along Dacre's three-quarter line, only to end by finding itself hurled, with the wing who was carrying it, into touch. Occasionally the centres, instead of feeding their wings, would try to dodge through themselves. And that was where the Babe came in. He was admittedly the best tackler in the School, but on this occasion he excelled himself. His man never had a chance of getting past. At last a lofty kick into touch over the heads of the spectators gave the players a few seconds' rest.

The Babe went up to Charteris.

'Look here,' he said, 'it's risky, but I think we'll try having the ball out a bit.'

'In our own twenty-five?' said Charteris.

'Wherever we are. I believe it will come off all right. Anyway, we'll try it. Tell the forwards.'

For forwards playing against a pack much heavier than themselves, it is easier to talk about letting the ball out than to do it. The first half dozen times that Merevale's scrum tried to heel they were shoved off their feet, and it was on the enemy's side that the ball went out. But the seventh attempt succeeded. Out it came, cleanly and speedily. Daintree, who was playing instead of Tony, switched it across to Charteris. Charteris dodged the half who was marking him, and ran. Heeling and passing in one's own twenty-five is like smoking--an excellent practice if indulged in in moderation. On this occasion it answered perfectly. Charteris ran to the half-way line, and handed the ball on to the Babe. The Babe was tackled from behind, and passed to Thomson. Thomson dodged his man, and passed to Welch on the wing. Welch was the fastest sprinter in the School. It was a pleasure--if you did not happen to be one of the opposing side--to see him race down the touch-line. He was off like an arrow. Dacre's back made a futile attempt to get at him. Welch could have given the back fifteen yards in a hundred. He ran round him, and, amidst terrific applause from the Merevale's-supporting section of the audience, scored between the posts. The Babe took the kick and converted without difficulty. Five minutes afterwards the whistle blew for half-time.

The remainder of the game does not call for detailed description. Dacre's pressed nearly the whole of the last half hour, but twice more the ball came out and went down Merevale's three-quarter line. Once it was the Babe who scored with a run from his own goal-line, and once Charteris, who got in from half-way, dodging through the whole team. The last ten minutes of the game was marked by a slight excess of energy on both sides. Dacre's forwards were in a decidedly bad temper, and fought like tigers to break through, and Merevale's played up to them with spirit. The Babe seemed continually to be precipitating himself at the feet of rushing forwards, and Charteris felt as if at least a dozen bones were broken in various portions of his anatomy. The game ended on Merevale's line, but they had won the match and the cup by two goals and a try to nothing.

Charteris limped off the field, cheerful but damaged. He ached all over, and there was a large bruise on his left cheek-bone. He and Babe were going to the House, when they were aware that the Headmaster was beckoning to them.

'Well, MacArthur, and what was the result of the match?'

'We won, sir,' boomed the Babe. 'Two goals and a try to _nil_.'

'You have hurt your cheek, Charteris?'

'Yes, sir.'

'How did you do that?'

'I got a kick, sir, in one of the rushes.'

'Ah. I should bathe it, Charteris. Bathe it well. I hope it will not be very painful. Bathe it well in warm water.'

He walked on.

'You know,' said Charteris to the Babe, as they went into the House, 'the Old Man isn't such a bad sort after all. He has his points, don't you think?'

The Babe said that he did.

'I'm going to reform, you know,' continued Charteris confidentially.

'It's about time,' said the Babe. 'You can have the bath first if you like. Only buck up.'

Charteris boiled himself for ten minutes, and then dragged his weary limbs to his study. It was while he was sitting in a deck-chair eating mixed biscuits, and wondering if he would ever be able to summon up sufficient energy to put on garments of civilization, that somebody knocked at the door.

'Yes,' shouted Charteris. 'What is it? Don't come in. I'm changing.'

The melodious treble of Master Crowinshaw, his fag, made itself heard through the keyhole.

'The Head told me to tell you that he wanted to see you at the School House as soon as you can go.'

'All right,' shouted Charteris. 'Thanks.'

'Now what,' he continued to himself, 'does the Old Man want to see me for? Perhaps he wants to make certain that I've bathed my cheek in warm water. Anyhow, I suppose I must go.'

A quarter of an hour later he presented himself at the Headmagisterial door. The sedate Parker, the Head's butler, who always filled Charteris with a desire to dig him hard in the ribs just to see what would happen, ushered him into the study.

The Headmaster was reading by the light of a lamp when Charteris came in. He laid down his book, and motioned him to a seat; after which there was an awkward pause.

'I have just received,' began the Head at last, 'a most unpleasant communication. Most unpleasant. From whom it comes I do not know. It is, in fact--er--anonymous. I am sorry that I ever read it.'

He stopped. Charteris made no comment. He guessed what was coming. He, too, was sorry that the Head had ever read the letter.

'The writer says that he saw you, that he actually spoke to you, at the athletic sports at Rutton yesterday. I have called you in to tell me if that is true.' The Head fastened an accusing eye on his companion.

'It is quite true, sir,' said Charteris steadily.

'What!' said the Head sharply. 'You were at Rutton?'

'Yes, sir.'

'You were perfectly aware, I suppose, that you were breaking the School rules by going there, Charteris?' enquired the Head in a cold voice.

'Yes, sir.' There was another pause.

'This is very serious,' began the Head. 'I cannot overlook this. I--'

There was a slight scuffle of feet in the passage outside. The door flew open vigorously, and a young lady entered. It was, as Charteris recognized in a minute, his acquaintance of the afternoon, the young lady of the bicycle.

'Uncle,' she said, 'have you seen my book anywhere?'

'Hullo!' she broke off as her eye fell on Charteris.

'Hullo!' said Charteris, affably, not to be outdone in the courtesies.

'Did you catch your train?'

'No. Missed it.'

'Hullo! what's the matter with your cheek?'

'I got a kick on it.'

'Oh, does it hurt?'

'Not much, thanks.'

Here the Head, feeling perhaps a little out of it, put in his oar.

'Dorothy, you must not come here now. I am busy. And how, may I ask, do you and Charteris come to be acquainted?'

'Why, he's him,' said Dorothy lucidly.

The Head looked puzzled.

'Him. The chap, you know.'

It is greatly to the Head's credit that he grasped the meaning of these words. Long study of the classics had quickened his faculty for seeing sense in passages where there was none. The situation dawned upon him.

'Do you mean to tell me, Dorothy, that it was Charteris who came to your assistance yesterday?'

Dorothy nodded energetically.

'He gave the men beans,' she said. 'He did, really,' she went on, regardless of the Head's look of horror. 'He used right and left with considerable effect.'

Dorothy's brother, a keen follower of the Ring, had been good enough some days before to read her out an extract from an account in _The Sportsman_ of a match at the National Sporting Club, and the account had been much to her liking. She regarded it as a masterpiece of English composition.

'Dorothy,' said the Headmaster, 'run away to bed.' A suggestion which she treated with scorn, it wanting a clear two hours to her legal bedtime. 'I must speak to your mother about your deplorable habit of using slang. Dear me, I must certainly speak to her.'

And, shamefully unabashed, Dorothy retired.

The Head was silent for a few minutes after she had gone; then he turned to Charteris again.

'In consideration of this, Charteris, I shall--er--mitigate slightly the punishment I had intended to give you.'

Charteris murmured his gratification.

'But,' continued the Head sternly, 'I cannot overlook the offence. I have my duty to consider. You will therefore write me--er--ten lines of Virgil by tomorrow evening, Charteris.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Latin _and_ English,' said the relentless pedagogue.

'Yes, sir.'

'And, Charteris--I am speaking now--er--unofficially, not as a headmaster, you understand--if in future you would cease to break School rules simply as a matter of principle, for that, I fancy, is what it amounts to, I--er--well, I think we should get on better together. And that is, on my part at least, a consummation--er--devoutly to be wished. Good-night, Charteris.'

'Good-night, sir.'

The Head extended a large hand. Charteris took it, and his departure.

The Headmaster opened his book again, and turned over a new leaf. Charteris at the same moment, walking slowly in the direction of Merevale's, was resolving for the future to do the very same thing. And he did.

[9]

HOW PAYNE BUCKED UP

It was Walkinshaw's affair from the first. Grey, the captain of the St Austin's Fifteen, was in the infirmary nursing a bad knee. To him came Charles Augustus Walkinshaw with a scheme. Walkinshaw was football secretary, and in Grey's absence acted as captain. Besides these two there were only a couple of last year's team left--Reade and Barrett, both of Philpott's House.

'Hullo, Grey, how's the knee?' said Walkinshaw.

'How's the team getting on?' he said.

'Well, as far as I can see,' said Walkinshaw, 'we ought to have a rather good season, if you'd only hurry up and come back. We beat a jolly hot lot of All Comers yesterday. Smith was playing for them. The Blue, you know. And lots of others. We got a goal and a try to _nil_.'

'Good,' said Grey. 'Who did anything for us? Who scored?'

'I got in once. Payne got the other.'

'By Jove, did he? What sort of a game is he playing this year?'

The moment had come for Walkinshaw to unburden himself to his scheme. He proceeded to do so.

'Not up to much,' he said. 'Look here, Grey, I've got rather an idea. It's my opinion Payne's not bucking up nearly as much as he might. Do you mind if I leave him out of the next game?'

Grey stared. The idea was revolutionary.

'What! Leave him out? My good man, he'll be the next chap to get his colours. He's a cert. for his cap.'

'That's just it. He knows he's a cert., and he's slacking on the strength of it. Now, my idea is that if you slung him out for a match or two, he'd buck up extra hard when he came into the team again. Can't I have a shot at it?'

Grey weighed the matter. Walkinshaw pressed home his arguments.

'You see, it isn't like cricket. At cricket, of course, it might put a chap off awfully to be left out, but I don't see how it can hurt a man's play at footer. Besides, he's beginning to stick on side already.'

'Is he, by Jove?' said Grey. This was the unpardonable sin. 'Well, I'll tell you what you can do if you like. Get up a scratch game, First Fifteen _v._ Second, and make him captain of the Second.'

'Right,' said Walkinshaw, and retired beaming.

Walkinshaw, it may be remarked at once, to prevent mistakes, was a well-meaning idiot. There was no doubt about his being well-meaning. Also, there was no doubt about his being an idiot. He was continually getting insane ideas into his head, and being unable to get them out again. This matter of Payne was a good example of his customary methods. He had put his hand on the one really first-class forward St Austin's possessed, and proposed to remove him from the team. And yet through it all he was perfectly well-meaning. The fact that personally he rather disliked Payne had, to do him justice, no weight at all with him. He would have done the same by his bosom friend under like circumstances. This is the only excuse that can be offered for him. It was true that Payne regarded himself as a certainty for his colours, as far as anything can be considered certain in this vale of sorrow. But to accuse him of trading on this, and, to use the vernacular, of putting on side, was unjust to a degree.

On the afternoon following this conversation Payne, who was a member of Dacre's House, came into his study and banged his books down on the table with much emphasis. This was a sign that he was feeling dissatisfied with the way in which affairs were conducted in the world. Bowden, who was asleep in an armchair--he had been staying in with a cold--woke with a start. Bowden shared Payne's study. He played centre three-quarter for the Second Fifteen.

'Hullo!' he said.

Payne grunted. Bowden realized that matters had not been going well with him. He attempted to soothe him with conversation, choosing what he thought would be a congenial topic.

'What's on on Saturday?' he asked.

'Scratch game. First _v._ Second.'

Bowden groaned.

'I know those First _v._ Second games,' he said. 'They turn the Second out to get butchered for thirty-five minutes each way, to improve the First's combination. It may be fun for the First, but it's not nearly so rollicking for us. Look here, Payne, if you find me with the pill at any time, you can let me down easy, you know. You needn't go bringing off any of your beastly gallery tackles.'

'I won't,' said Payne. 'To start with, it would be against rules. We happen to be on the same side.'

'Rot, man; I'm not playing for the First.' This was the only explanation that occurred to him.

'I'm playing for the Second.'

'What! Are you certain?'

'I've seen the list. They're playing Babington instead of me.'

'But why? Babington's no good.'

'I think they have a sort of idea I'm slacking or something. At any rate, Walkinshaw told me that if I bucked up I might get tried again.'

'Silly goat,' said Bowden. 'What are you going to do?'

'I'm going to take his advice, and buck up.'

II

He did. At the beginning of the game the ropes were lined by some thirty spectators, who had come to derive a languid enjoyment from seeing the First pile up a record score. By half-time their numbers had risen to an excited mob of something over three hundred, and the second half of the game was fought out to the accompaniment of a storm of yells and counter yells such as usually only belonged to school-matches. The Second Fifteen, after a poor start, suddenly awoke to the fact that this was not going to be the conventional massacre by any means. The First had scored an unconverted try five minutes after the kick-off, and it was after this that the Second began to get together. The school back bungled the drop out badly, and had to find touch in his own twenty-five, and after that it was anyone's game. The scrums were a treat to behold. Payne was a monument of strength. Time after time the Second had the ball out to their three-quarters, and just after half-time Bowden slipped through in the corner. The kick failed, and the two teams, with their scores equal now, settled down grimly to fight the thing out to a finish. But though they remained on their opponents' line for most of the rest of the game, the Second did not add to their score, and the match ended in a draw of three points all.

The first intimation Grey received of this came to him late in the evening. He had been reading a novel which, whatever its other merits may have been, was not interesting, and it had sent him to sleep. He awoke to hear a well-known voice observe with some unction: 'Ah! M'yes. Leeches and hot fomentations.' This effectually banished sleep. If there were two things in the world that he loathed, they were leeches and hot fomentations, and the School doctor apparently regarded them as a panacea for every kind of bodily ailment, from a fractured skull to a cold in the head. It was this gentleman who had just spoken, but Grey's alarm vanished as he perceived that the words had no personal application to himself. The object of the remark was a fellow-sufferer in the next bed but one. Now Grey was certain that when he had fallen asleep there had been nobody in that bed. When, therefore, the medical expert had departed on his fell errand, the quest of leeches and hot fomentations, he sat up and gave tongue.

'Who's that in that bed?' he asked.

'Hullo, Grey,' replied a voice. 'Didn't know you were awake. I've come to keep you company.'

'That you, Barrett? What's up with you?'

'Collar-bone. Dislocated it or something. Reade's over in that corner. He has bust his ankle. Oh, yes, we've been having a nice, cheery afternoon,' concluded Barrett bitterly.

'Great Scott! How did it happen?'

'Payne.'

'Where? In your collar-bone?'

'Yes. That wasn't what I meant, though. What I was explaining was that Payne got hold of me in the middle of the field, and threw me into touch. After which he fell on me. That was enough for my simple needs. I'm not grasping.'

'How about Reade?'

'The entire Second scrum collapsed on top of Reade. When we dug him out his ankle was crocked. Mainspring gone, probably. Then they gathered up the pieces and took them gently away. I don't know how it all ended.'

Just then Walkinshaw burst into the room. He had a large bruise over one eye, his arm was in a sling, and he limped. But he was in excellent spirits.

'I knew I was right, by Jove,' he observed to Grey. 'I knew he could buck up if he liked.'

'I know it now,' said Barrett.

'Who's this you're talking about?' said Grey.

'Payne. I've never seen anything like the game he played today. He was everywhere. And, by Jove, his _tackling_!'

'Don't,' said Barrett, wearily.

'It's the best match I ever played in,' said Walkinshaw, bubbling over with enthusiasm. 'Do you know, the Second had all the best of the game.'

'What was the score?'

'Draw. One try all.'

'And now I suppose you're satisfied?' enquired Barrett. The great scheme for the regeneration of Payne had been confided to him by its proud patentee.

'Almost,' said Walkinshaw. 'We'll continue the treatment for one more game, and then we'll have him simply fizzing for the Windybury match. That's next Saturday. By the way, I'm afraid you'll hardly be fit again in time for that, Barrett, will you?'