by Alec Waugh
As he sat listening to Finnemore discussing artistic questions in form, he felt wildly impatient to hear Ferrer’s opinion. Nothing seemed settled definitely until Ferrers had spoken, and only the Army and Matriculation classes had the tremendous advantages of doing English with him. Most of Ferrer’s time was wasted in attempts to drive home mathematical theories into the dense brain of a lower school set.
As to his influence in the school there could be no two opinions. The bloods, of course, were too completely settled in their grooves of Philistinism and self-worship to feel the force of innovation. But even on a mild character like Foster’s his effect was startling. Ferrer’s great theory was: “Let boys take their own time. The adage that it does a boy good to do what he hates may be all right for the classics, but it is no good to try that game with literature. Find out what a boy likes. Encourage him, show you are in sympathy with his taste, and once in his confidence gradually lead him step by step to the real stuff. He will follow you, if you only make out you like what he likes. A boy hates the superior attitude of ‘Oh, quite good in its way, of course.’ A master must get to the boy’s level; it is fatuous to try and drag the boy to his at once.” And there is abundant proof to show that this plan was a success. When Ferrers first came, Foster, for example, read nothing but Kipling and Guy Boothby. During his last term Gordon found him absorbed in Vanity Fair and The Duchess of Malfi. It would be difficult to over-estimate the good Ferrers did at Fernhurst. From afar Gordon worshipped him. He learnt from Foster what Ferrers had read to his form and what he recommended them to read, and as soon as he could he borrowed or bought the book. The school book-shop about this time began to find in Gordon its most generous patron. At times Gordon would tell Foster to ask Ferrers questions that interested him. And the answers, usually a little vague and elastic, spurred Gordon on to fresh fields. His taste was beginning to grow, and football “shop” was no longer his only topic of conversation.
Chapter IV
Thirds
There was only one thing that at all worried Gordon just now, and that was the behaviour of the Hazlitt brethren. Mention has already been made of this couple. During their first few terms they gave every promise of developing into the very worst types that banality and athletic success can produce, and these expectations had been abundantly fulfilled. The elder brother had his points, but they were few, the chief one being that he was fairly good at games, which, after all, is but a negative quality. But the younger, who was as useless as he was generally officious, was entirely devoid of any redeeming feature. His ways were the ways of a slum child playing in the gutter, and his sense of humour was limited to shouting rude remarks after other people, knocking off hats, and then running away. His language was foul enough to disgust even a Public School’s taste. Gordon loathed him. One evening he and Lovelace discussed the child.
“Look here,” said Gordon, “it’s no good, this. That unutterable little tick Hazlitt knocked off my hat as I was looking at the notice-board today, and I am not going to stand it. By the time I had turned round he was half-way across the courts.”
“The little swine! He is not fit to be in a decent school. If he can’t get rid of the habits he learnt with street cads in the holidays of his own accord, he’ll have to be kicked out of them. We will wait for him one day, and if we see him knock a School House straw off, my God, we will boot him to blazes!”
“Right you are. It won’t be bullying. It will be treating a dirty beast in the only way he can understand.”
About three days later, from their study window, they saw Hazlitt minor proceeding to the notice-board after lunch. They left their study and walked into the cloisters.
Hazlitt minor read the notices, discovered that, as he was posted on no game, he must of necessity take himself to the “pick-up,” and then looked round. Davenham was conscientiously perusing a notice, although there was no likelihood of his own name appearing on any. (It is almost true to say that nobody looked at the board except the people about whom there are no notices to read.) There was an announcement four days old to the effect that C.J. Mansell had been presented with his First Fifteen colours. Davenham seemed to find it vastly interesting. Hazlitt stole up behind, and knocked his hat flying across the cloister. In a second Gordon and Lovelace were on him. They did not care in the very least what happened to Davenham. He played no part in their life. But a School House man had been “cheeked” by a filthy little outhouse swab. These aliens had to be taught their place.
“What do you mean by that, you awful tick?” shouted Lovelace. “Davenham, go and fetch a hockey stick from Tester’s study.”
Hazlitt let out with his feet and caught Gordon on the ankle, but the horrible hack he got in return quieted him.
Davenham appeared with a hockey stick.
Gordon managed to get Hazlitt’s head between his knees, and Lovelace began to give that worthy a beating he was never likely to forget. In a few minutes he was blubbering for mercy. Fletcher passed by.
“Here you are, Archie,” yelled Gordon; “come and have a shot at this swine Hazlitt; we are teaching him that he can’t go about knocking off School House hats with impunity.”
“Right you are, my lads.”
By the time Archie had finished, Hazlitt had almost collapsed. Gordon let him go, and with a hefty boot sent him flying into the cloisters.
“I don’t think we shall have any more of him for a bit,” said Lovelace, with satisfaction.
“No; these outhouse lads want showing their place from time to time. The School House, after all, is the place. We are like Rome, the mother city; the other outhouses are merely provinces of ours. Jolly good of us to let them use our buildings at all. Come and change; we have done a good deed, my friends.”
But the matter did not end there. That evening in Buller’s dormitories Hazlitt told a story of how Caruthers had been bullying him for no reason, and hacking him till he could hardly sit down. He left out Lovelace’s name, because Lovelace was popular with the Buller’s crowd. News of this reached Felston, the second prefect. He fumed with rage, and sought Gregory, the Buller’s house captain.
“Have you heard the latest? That swine Caruthers has been bullying Hazlitt. He drove him all round the cloisters, hitting him with a hockey stick.”
“Good God, the swine! Did he really! My word, I’ll lay him out in the Three Cock. You wait, that’s all. When he plays in the Three Cock, I’ll lay him out for dead in the first ten minutes.”
In due course this story found its way to the Buller’s day-room, where was great rejoicing. So Caruthers was going to be laid out, was he? How damned funny! Hazlitt’s heart leapt within him. His evil little mind pictured Gordon being carried off the field, absolutely smashed up. He gloated.
Gordon laughed when he heard of it.
“Oh, well, at any rate I shall have my shot at them first in the Thirds and Two Cock.”
He was secretly rather pleased to see that even his enemies had not the slightest doubt about his getting a place in the Three Cock. A House cap was just then his great ambition. But for all that he suffered considerable annoyance. Whenever he went up to the tuck-shop a voice from the Buller’s doorway croaked: “Wait for the Three Cock!”
At first it was rather amusing. But soon it got distinctly tiresome. Deep in his heart he cursed the tick Hazlitt and the whole Buller crowd. A joke could be carried to an extreme. And it slowly dawned on him that, if he did play in the Three Cock, he was in for a remarkably thin time.
Almost the last words he heard as the eight-forty swept out of Fernhurst station on the last morning, with its waving hands and shoutings, was a shriek from the Buller’s day-room: “Wait for the Three Cock!” Gordon laughed for a second, and then looked bored. The jest had ceased to have a shred of humour left upon it. It was naked and ought to be ashamed.
The Easter term opened in the conventional way with rain, slush and influenza. The fields were flooded, the country a lake; the bare branches dripped incessan
tly. But for all that the first round of the Thirds began on the first Saturday.
Buller’s drew Rogers’s. There was no doubt as to the result. It would be a walk-over for Buller’s, though Burgoyne might get over the line once or twice.
There was a crowd in front of the pavilion.
“Well, do something, at any rate,” said Gordon. “Don’t let Buller’s get above themselves. You keep them in order.”
“Oh yes, we’ll sit on them!” laughed Burgoyne. “By the way, I think it would be rather a good scheme to lay out Hazlitt minor, don’t you?”
Never did any forward in any house match at Fernhurst take the field without the sworn intention of laying out some hated opponent. Nevertheless during the whole time Gordon was at school only one boy was hurt so badly that he had to leave the field. And that was an accident. He broke his collar-bone, falling over by the goal-posts. It had become almost a custom to state whom you were going to lay out before the match. The idea sounds brutal, but it never led to anything. Gordon knew this as well as anyone.
“Good man! And look here, if you do, I’ll give you a bob.”
“A bargain?”
“Of course.”
“Right, my lad. We will have a good supper tonight in my study.”
The match followed the ordinary course. Frenzied juniors rushed up and down the touch-line inarticulate with excitement; the bloods, strolling arm in arm, patronised the game mildly. Buller’s won very easily. Hazlitt played quite decently and scored once. Burgoyne went supperless.
The second and third rounds were played; everywhere Buller’s triumphed. No house was beaten by less than forty points. Not a try was scored against them. Christy’s, who had lost by forty-four points to nil, had, as the least unsuccessful house, the doubtful honour of joining forces with Buller’s to play the School House in the final.
The betting was fairly even. Buller’s thought they would win; the House, as usual, was certain of victory. The school expected a level game, and on the whole wanted to see a School House win. Buller’s had had too much success of late years; and envy was inevitably at work.
The selection of the combined outhouse side caused a lot of consideration. There was once an idea of playing Hazlitt minor, but much to the annoyance of the House this plan was, from the outhouse point of view, wisely dropped. And now Jack Whitaker—he was always known as Jack—enters the story.
Jack was a very decent sort of kid, much (in the School House estimation) above the standard of Buller’s day-room. He was a little rowdy and ostentatious, but had the justification of being really good at something. He was a promising half-back, and his cricket was so good that there was talk of his getting a trial for the School Eleven. Gordon and he got on rather well. But he was very young; under fifteen, in fact, and very impetuous.
About a week before the Thirds “the Bull” was discussing the match in the dormitories. Jack was very full of words.
“I say, sir, isn’t it awfully lucky for Hazlitt that he is not playing?”
“The Bull” was surprised. Only that evening he had been talking with Hazlitt, and telling him how sorry he was that there was no place for him in the side.
“Why, Jack? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, well, you see, sir, all the School House fellows had sworn to lay him out!”
“You must not talk like that, Jack. It is not sporting. And it stirs up ill feeling in the school. You can’t honestly believe that any gentleman would play a game in that spirit. You have no proof of what you say except mere rumour, I suppose. You mustn’t talk like that.”
“The Bull” was not at all pleased, and walked away to turn out the light. Whitaker saw he had gone too far and had said more than he meant to. But he couldn’t stand the idea that “the Bull” should think he had been repeating merely idle chatter.
“But, sir, I know for certain that in the Christy’s match the School House men were offering money to Christy’s to lay Hazlitt out.”
Buller stopped with his hand on the gas-tap.
“That is a very serious accusation, Jack. Are you telling me that any Fernhurst boys so lack sportsmanlike feeling as to bribe boys in other houses to lay out their rivals, so that it will be easier for them to win.”
“Oh, sir, I don’t think that they meant that.”
“Well, you said it, at any rate.”
The gas went out suddenly. “The Bull” strode out without saying goodnight. In his study he turned over in his mind the extraordinary story he had heard. If what Jack had told him was the truth, Fernhurst football, which was to him, and to many others, the finest thing in the world, had become little better than league professionalism. Bribes were being offered for men to be laid out. He had never heard of such a thing. There was no one to remind him that the offering of bribes means little to a schoolboy, and the mere talk of “laying people out” still less. It is all a question of custom, of the sense in which phrases are used by the particular speakers who use them.
There are certain words which today are vulgar and disgusting, but which in the days of Shakespeare would have been used in any company without a blush. And this is so merely because time has given the words a different significance. Indeed, from the point of view of the average person, to leave schoolmasters out of the question, the idea of offering bribes to lay out athletes is revolting. And so it is. It is unsportsmanlike, unworthy of English traditions. But when Gordon offered Burgoyne a shilling to lay out Hazlitt, although he said it was a bargain, he meant nothing at all by his offer. He knew that Burgoyne, once he got on the field, could think of nothing but the game, and would forget all about Hazlitt and himself. Everyone offered bribes, but no one had been known to receive a penny of them. Still, Buller could not be expected to know this. He saw in the affair a menace to the future of Fernhurst sport. Jack’s story might be only idle chatter, or it might have some foundation. At any rate he had got to go to the bottom, and sift out the truth for the good of Fernhurst.
After evening chapel on the Sunday before the match the Chief sent for Gordon; when Gordon arrived he found Harding, the head of the House, there too. The Chief looked worried. There was a row in prospect. Gordon racked his brain to think of anything that could possibly have been found out about him. Of course there were many old troubles that might have been raked up. He had always realised that the hand of the past would still be near the shoulder of the present. Yet, what had he been doing recently?
“Isn’t Hazelton coming, Harding?” The Chief was speaking.
“Yes, sir; but I believe he is collecting chapel cards.”
Hazelton too. Complications, forsooth. There was an awkward pause. Then Hazelton came in, quite at his ease.
“Sir, the chapel cards; and I believe you wanted to see me, sir?”
“Ah, yes, Hazelton; put the cards on my desk. Now, Caruthers, I want to ask you a question before the head and captain of the House that I hope you will answer truthfully. Did you offer a boy in Mr Christy’s house money to ‘lay out,’ I believe that was the phrase, a boy in Mr Buller’s house in the recent house match.”
Gordon thought for a moment. Had he? It was quite likely he had; but he could not remember. Then the scene came back. The crowd in front of the pavilion. Burgoyne: Hazlitt in the offing.
“Yes, sir,” he replied, after the instant’s hesitation.
“You seem rather doubtful about it.”
“Well, sir, I was trying to remember whether I had or not.”
The Chief was nettled by such apparent callousness.
“You talk as if you were in the habit of offering such rewards. Are you?”
“Well, sir, it is the sort of thing any fellow might do.”
“That is neither here nor there. I doubt the truth of your statement very much. But even if the school had become so generally demoralised as you suggest, that would not be any excuse for you. As a matter of fact, how much did you offer the boy?”
“A shilling, sir.”
�
�Was that a genuine offer, now? If he had done what you wanted him to, would you have paid him?”
Gordon was now well out of his depth. Explanation seemed impossible. Had the offer been genuine? He supposed it had. If the tick had been laid out, Gordon would have been so delighted that he would have stood the whole of Christy’s drinks all round.
“Yes, sir,” he said quite cheerfully.
A smile that rose to Hazelton’s lips was instantly suppressed.
“Ah! rather like hiring assassins in the cheap novelettes. What was your idea? Did you think Hazlitt would have been a help to the School side?”
“No, sir. I hardly think he would have been of much assistance to them.”
The idea of Hazlitt being of any use to anyone was very amusing. Gordon always saw the funny side of everything. As a ghost, he would probably have found something cynically amusing in his own funeral.
