03 Tales of St.Austin's

by Unknown

  ‘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?’

  ‘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 ther
e, 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.’