  Produced by Al Haines. BROTHERS THE TRUE HISTORY OF BY HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL LONDON FIRST EDITION . . May 1904 Copyright in the United TO ALL MEN AND WOMEN BY THE SAME AUTHOR A DRAMA IN SUNSHINE PREFATORY NOTE It is likely that the brothers in this book will be recognised by some readers who may indict the good taste of revealing a secret guarded jealously during many years. To these let it be said that the brother who attained to the highest honours and dignities of his profession earnestly desired that the truth concerning certain incidents in his earlier career should be told in a biography. A desire he was constrained reluctantly to forego. The story of the Samphires satisfies adequately enough the exigencies of a peculiar case. The many are not concerned; the few will discern truth through the thin veil of fiction. CONTENTS CHAPTER
BROTHERS PROLOGUE Mark Samphire clutched tightly his mother's hand, as the big room began to fill with people. Some he knew, and these he feared: because they might speak to him, and then he would stammer, and choke, and make a piteous spectacle of himself. He wished that he were his brother, Archibald, standing on the other side of his mother, Archie, the pink-skinned and golden-haired, a tremendous fellow clad in a new sailor suit, and tolerably self-possessed, but pinker than usual, because a lady in lavender silk had hugged him and called him "a darling." Nobody called Mark a darling except his mother, and that only when they were alone. The fat butler kept shouting out more names. Mrs. Corrance and Jim arrived. Mark hoped they would sit near him. Jim was his own age—a ripe seven—and a sworn friend. Lord Randolph talked to Admiral Kirtling, the funny man who made everybody laugh. Ah! Jim had pushed his way through the crowd. In a minute the two boys were whispering together, nineteen to the dozen, for Mark seldom stammered when he talked to Jim. An older person than Mark would have seen on the faces of the assembled company an air of expectation. Big folding-doors, now shut, divided the drawing-room from the library. Upon these the eyes of the women lingered, for behind them stood mystery and—so it was reported—beauty! Meantime they chattered, talking for the most part about the house, newly built, and well named The Whim. Miss Selina Lamb, one of the Lambs from Cranberry-Orcas, who had so many relations that she was never out of half-mourning, gave information to the Dean of Westchester. "I assure you, Mr. Dean, that it is a fact. The dear Admiral got into a fly at Westchester—he carried nothing but a white umbrella, and told the man, Thomas Pinnick, who has driven me a score of times, to take him to 'some salubrious locality.' Thomas, quite properly, drove him here across the downs. The west wind was blowing strongly, and the dear man thought he was in the chops—it is chops, isn't it?—yes, in the chops of the Channel. He gave Thomas Pinnick a sovereign, and bought this hill within the week. Now he has built this remarkable house." The Dean smiled, admitting that the house might be described as remarkable. Bedrooms covered the ground floor; above these the sitting-rooms commanded a fine view of the pastoral county of Slowshire; at the top of the house were the kitchen and servants' offices! "I understand," said Mr. Dean, "that food descends like manna from above, and that the common odours of leek and cabbage ascend, and are smelled of none, save perhaps the skylarks." "You always put things so poetically," murmured Miss Lamb. "Yes, you are right. The still-room is just above the library." "Where it should be, my dear Miss Lamb. I hope the Admiral's housekeeper wears list slippers." Miss Lamb, sensible that the Dean was making a joke which she could not quite understand, smiled, showing large even teeth, and asked if Mr. Dean had ever met the young lady in whose honour they had gathered together. Mr. Dean had not met the young lady, but he had known, intimately, her mother. Miss Lamb blushed. "She was charming," murmured the Dean absently, "the most fascinating creature." The spinster sniffed her surprise, reflecting that her companion was a radical. A true blue, the bishop, for instance, would not have mentioned the mother at all. She felt it her duty to bleat a feeble protest. "She behaved so shockingly, Mr. Dean." "True, true, but she was very young, Miss Lamb. Poor, pretty creature! And now—dead!" Miss Lamb closed her thin lips, and her large, too prominent, china-blue eyes settled upon a portrait just opposite: the portrait of Colonel Kirtling, the Admiral's elder brother, the father of the mystery behind the folding-doors, and the husband of the pretty creature who had behaved so shockingly. The picture, painted by Richmond, was not unlike the famous portrait of Lord Byron. Colonel Fred Kirtling had been one of the handsomest men in the Guards. Richmond reproduced his curling auburn hair, his short upper lip, his finely modelled nose, his round chin with a distracting (the adjective was Lady Blessington's) dimple in it, and his "wicked" (Lady B. again) eyes. "Did you know Colonel Kirtling, Mr. Dean?" "Yes. A sad scamp, Miss Lamb, a scamp when he married—at sixty!" He began to speak of the Kirtling family. Admiral Kirtling was the fourth son of the sixteenth Lord Kirtling, of Kirtling, in the county of Cumberland, who married a Penberthy from Cornwall, an heiress with a large fortune settled upon herself and her children. The seventeenth lord inherited whatever his sire had been unable to sell: Kirtling heavily mortgaged and stripped of its huge leaden roof (gambled away at hazard) and the wild moors which encompass it. This nobleman lived and died in chronic resentment against the poverty his father had inflicted upon him. His brother succeeded, and was the father of a son whom we shall meet by and by. Fred, the third brother, who had a royal duke for a godfather, married Louise de Courcy, a beauty with French blood in her veins. It is certain that she married Fred for love and against the wishes of her parents; and it is equally certain that she left him—just four years afterwards—because she loved somebody else much better. This somebody, who happened to be a peer and a famous soldier, offered Fred such satisfaction as one gentleman, even in those latter days, might tender an injured husband. Fred, however, wrote in reply that he was under an obligation to his lordship for taking off his hands the most ungrateful hussy in the kingdom. Fred's word, be it added, was little better than his bond (the children of Israel knew that to be worthless); and it is significant that Mrs. Kirtling's family, both French and Irish, abused Fred to all-comers: asserting that he had deceived dozens of women in his time, and none more cruelly than his charming wife. Death shut the mouths of the gossips by carrying off both Fred and Louise within six months of the latter's elopement. By this time the Admiral, a bachelor of some eccentricity, had just settled into his new house at King's Charteris, near Westchester, and was known to be averse to leaving it. Yet he had to answer the question: "Who will take care of Fred's baby?" Lady Randolph, a kinswoman, was called into council. "Children are the devil," said the Admiral gloomily. "Think of my nymphs." (He had some beautiful china). "This one may prove the prettiest of them all," said Lady Randolph. "Yes, yes; father and mother the handsomest couple, even if forty years were between 'em. Well, well, I lean on you, dear lady." Lady Randolph did not fail him. She fetched the child from town, gave the nurse, an impudent town minx, twenty-four hours' notice, and installed in her place a respectable girl, Esther Gear, out of her own village of Birr Wood. So much, and little more, was known to the company assembled in the Admiral's drawing-room. Presently the big folding-doors were flung open, and Lady Randolph passed through, leading by the hand little Elizabeth Kirtling. A buzz of admiration greeted Betty. She wore a delicate India muslin frock, encircled by a rose-coloured sash. Rose-coloured shoes embellished her tiny feet, and a knot of the same coloured riband glowed in her dark curls, which framed an oval face. The Admiral had told Esther Gear that he would tolerate no black, which came, he said, into people's lives soon enough. Round her neck was a string of coral beads which matched the tints of her cheeks. Her great hazel eyes shone demurely beneath their thick black lashes, and when she smiled her lips parted, revealing a fairy's set of teeth between two dimples. The Admiral met his niece on the threshold of the room, took her hand, and patted it softly. Then he led her forward. The finely proportioned saloon, filled with rare and beautiful things, the silver light of an October afternoon, the many faces—young and old alike touched and interested—served as a setting for the grizzled veteran, with his whimsical weather-beaten face seamed by a thousand lines, and the diminutive creature at his side. Mrs. Samphire let two tears trickle unheeded down her thin cheeks, but her pretty mouth was smiling. Mark felt that his mother's grasp had tightened. Perhaps she foresaw, poor lady, that the time appointed for her to leave her sons was near at hand. Mark stared hard at the little girl as if indeed—as was true—he had never seen her like. Now it seems that the Admiral had told his niece, with a twinkle in his kind eyes, that the drawing-room was her room: the state apartment of the only lady of his house. And so, when Betty looked up and saw many strange faces about her she recalled an adjective too often in her father's mouth, and said clearly and loudly: "Uncle, what are all dese dam peoples doing in my room?" When the laughter died down, the Admiral said with his queer chuckle: "Egad! this is a maid of surprises"; but he was careful to explain to his niece that his friends were her friends, to be honoured and loved by her. The child's mouth puckered, and her great eyes were troubled. "I can't love all dese peoples," she protested, on the edge of tears. The Admiral laughed. "You must pick and choose, Betty. 'Tis the privilege of your sex. Come now, who pleases you best?" She understood perfectly: examining the company with dignified curiosity. Finally, her eyes rested upon the three boys at Mrs. Samphire's side. "I like dem boys," she said clearly. The three boys were confused but charmed. "She likes the boys, the coquette!" exclaimed the Admiral. "And which of the three, missie, do you like best?" The boys blushed because the company stared at them. Archie, the handsome one, stood nearest to little Betty, and seeing her hesitation held out his hands; Jim Corrance smiled invitingly; Mark, the stammerer, attempted no lure, dismally conscious that he could not compete against the others, but his forget-me-not blue eyes, the only fine feature he possessed, suffused a soft radiance. "I love him!" cried Betty, running forward. She passed Archie and Jim, flinging her arms round Mark's neck, who bashfully returned her eager kisses. "Um!" said the Admiral, half smiling, half frowning, "as I remarked just now, here is a Maid of Surprises." CHAPTER I BUBBLE AND SQUEAK This is the history of a fighter, a fighter against odds, whose weapons were forged at Harrow-on-the-Hill. Afterwards, in Mark Samphire's eyes, all school buildings, even the humblest, had a certain sanctity, because they are strewn with precious dust, the pulverem Olympicum, so pungent to the nostrils of a combatant. To him, for instance, the ancient Fourth Form Room at Harrow was no battered mausoleum of dead names, but a glorious Campus Martius, where Byron, Peel, and other immortal youths wrestled with their future, even as Jacob wrestled with the angel. Mark and his friend Jim Corrance became Harrovians when they were fourteen, taking their places in the First Shell, the highest form but one open to new boys. Archibald Samphire, their senior by eighteen months, had just reached the Upper Remove, two forms ahead of the First Shell. The three boys travelled together from King's Charteris to London; but at Euston Mark and Jim were bundled by Archie into a first-class carriage, with instructions to sit still and not "swagger." Archie joined some swells on the platform. One of these Olympians lighted a cigar, which he smoked for a couple of minutes, throwing it away with the observation that really he must tell the dear old governor to buy better weeds. "How do you feel, Mark?" whispered Jim. "If I l-looked as small as I f-f-feel," said Mark, "you wouldn't be able to s-s-see me." An hour later they stood in the schoolyard. Here "bill" was called; here yard-cricket, beloved by many generations of boys, was played; here, peering out of his cell, might be seen the rosy, clean-shaven face of old Sam, Custos, as the Doctor called him; that sly old Sam who sold all things pertaining to Harrow games at a preposterous profit; who prepared the rods, who was present when those rods fell hurtling upon the bare flesh—Sam of the fair, round belly, Sam of the ripe, ruby-coloured nose, who has led bishops, statesmen, field-marshals, peers and baronets, members of Parliament, members of the Bar, members of the Stock Exchange—to the BLOCK! Can it be possible that Sam has passed away? Surely not. Is he not part and parcel of the Yard? And when the Yard lies silent and deserted, when the moonbeams alone play upon it, when the school clock tolls midnight, does not the ghost of old Sam fare forth on his familiar rounds, keeping watch and ward in the ancient precincts? From the Yard Archibald escorted Mark and Jim to Billy's, their boarding-house, where the boys found themselves joint tenants of a two-room, a piece of good fortune (for there were several three-rooms and one four-room) which they owed partly to Archie, as he was careful to inform them, and partly to the high places they had taken in the school. Long and narrow, with a door at one end and a window at the other, this room contained two battered fold-up bedsteads, two washhand-stands, two bureaux, a shabby carpet, a table, a fireplace, and three Windsor chairs. Here the boys were expected to work, to sleep, and to eat breakfast and tea. No room, according to Mark, has since given him the pleasure and pride which he derived from this. And Jim Corrance, after he had made his enormous fortune, liked to speak of the first sporting-prints which he bought and of the moth-eaten head of a red deer, a nine-pointer, found in an attic at Pitt Hall, the home of the Samphires. This first summer half was as pleasant as any Mark spent at Harrow. He learned to swim in "Ducker," the school bathing-place, a puddle in those days, but since greatly enlarged and improved; he was taught to play cricket with a straight bat; he lay upon the green slopes of the Sixth Form Ground and ate ices; he spent his exeat at Randolph House in Belgrave Square, and witnessed at "Lord's" the defeat of the Eton eleven from the top of Lord Randolph's coach, returning to Harrow with a sovereign in his pocket, pride in his heart, and heaven knows what mixture of pie and pudding and champagne in his small stomach! At Billy's the colour, tone, and texture of the "house" were exceptionally good. Billy treated his boys as gentlemen. Some dominies play the spy, thereby turning boys into enemies instead of friends; Billy always coughed discreetly when making his rounds. And if he had reason to suspect a boy of conduct unbecoming an Harrovian, he would send for him and speak to him quietly, or perhaps, if the offender was a good fellow, ask him to breakfast or dinner, heaping food upon his plate and coals of fire upon his head. His favourite warning may be quoted: "I have had my eye on you for some time." But Mark knew, even then, that Billy's eyes were none of the best, and that often they pretended not to see much that a wise man overlooks. The first year passed quickly. Mark and Jim found themselves in the Lower Remove at the beginning of the winter half, where they achieved the distinction of a "double," jumping over the Upper Remove into the Third Fifth, known as "Paradise," a place so pleasant that some boys refused to leave it. One could say to aunts and uncles, "Oh, I'm in the Fifth," and few were unkind enough to ask, "Which Fifth?" Here they found Archie and a friend of his, Lubber West, who in these latter days doubtless would have been superannuated, and not without cause. Archie and the Lubber practised what they called the "co-operative system of work." They would come to Mark's room and sit upon the sofa with a large gallipot of strawberry-ice between them. Then Mark and Jim were instructed to "mug up" forty lines of Euripides. This took time, and meanwhile the ice was consumed and anything else in the form of light refreshment which might be offered. When Mark was ready to construe, Archie and the Lubber produced a couple of battered books, and listened attentively enough to what Mark had to say, noting in light pencil marks unfamiliar verbs and nouns. In this way, as Archie observed, much valuable time was saved, and the lesson honourably learned. Archie had a number of "cribs," but, as elder brother, he denounced their use by Mark as immoral. "Samphire major has given us a very 'Smart'[#] translation," was one of Billy's bon mots, not original with him by any means, but accepted by his pupils as proof of wit and gentlemanlike satire. [#] Horace was translated by Smart. During this half, Archibald was working hard at cricket, under the kindly eyes of those famous coaches, the late Lord Bessborough and Mr. Robert Grimston. He had more than a chance of playing for the school; and accordingly he pointed out to Mark that it was the minor's duty to help his major with Greek and Latin. "If I do get my straw,"[#] he said, "you will reap your reward." This unconscious humorist was now a glorious specimen of Anglo-Saxon youth. He had crisp yellow hair, curling tightly over a round, well-proportioned head, the clear, ruddy skin which from the days of David has always commanded admiration, and a tenor voice of peculiarly fine quality. Mark was his humble and adoring slave. Now, it chanced that in a shop half-way down Harrow Hill two young women possessed of bright complexions and waspish waists served hot chocolate and buttered toast to boys coming up from the playing fields, and in particular to certain boys of Billy's. Behind the shop was a back room, into which two or three big fellows were admitted. In a certain set it became the thing to drop into Brown's at half-past four and have a lark with the girls. The girls were able to take care of themselves; the boys lost their heads. Because Archie's head was a pretty one, the girls were not particularly anxious that he should find it. During the Christmas term he and a boy from another house were in and out of Brown's half a dozen times a day, and the school wondered what would happen. [#] The black-and-white straw hat only worn by members of the school eleven. "I l-l-loathe those girls," said Mark; "one b-b-bubbles and one squeaks." Billy's seized the phrase. Within a week the girls were known as Bubble and Squeak. One of the fags pinned a card to Archie's door:— "Which do you like best: chocolate and buttered toast or Bubble and Squeak?" "What can we do?" said Mark to Jim. "Is it Bubble or Squeak?" Jim asked. "I d-d-don't know or care; they're vulgar b-b-beasts. Old Archie has a lock of hair. They've given away tons of it: enough to stuff a sofa." "They can get more from the same old place," said Jim. "Oh, it's their own," said Mark. "I hate marmalade-coloured hair—don't you?" It was after this brief dialogue that Jim noticed a falling off of Mark's interest in his work. For the first time a copy of Iambics deserved some of the remarks which the form-master made upon them. During the next fortnight this negligence, coupled with his stutter and a temporary deafness, sent Mark to the bottom of his class. Jim asked for an explanation. "It's old Archie. He's playing the devil with himself." "Let him," said Jim, who was no altruist. "What's the good of worrying? We can't do anything." "Perhaps we c-c-can," said Mark. "We must," he added. "You have a scheme?" Mark nodded. "I d-d-don't know w-what you'll say to it." "I can't say anything till I hear it." "S-suppose I give Billy a hint?" The scheme was so alien to a boy's conception of the word "honour," such a violation of an unwritten code—in fine, such a desperate remedy—that Jim gasped. "D-don't look like that!" said Mark sharply. "C-can't you see that I loathe it—as—you do. If m-mother were alive I'd write to her. But if I told father, he would come bellowing down, and behave like a bull in a china shop. There would be a jolly r-r-row then." "Mark," said Jim, "Archie is big enough to look after himself." "It's worse than you think," Mark said. "He's meeting this g-g-girl after lock-up. He gets out of the pantry window. I daresay he's squared one of the Tobies" (Toby was the generic name for footmen). "And it's frightfully r-r-risky. If he's nailed, he'll be sacked." "What a silly old ass!" said Jim. "He runs these frightful risks—for what? To kiss a girl who bubbles at the mouth!" "It's the one who squeaks," Jim amended. "And she's an artful dodger. She thinks he'll marry her. All right, I'll go with you to Billy after prayers to-night." "I'll go alone." "You won't." "I will." "No." "Yes; yes; yes." Jim's obstinacy prevailed. After prayers, the boys waited in the passage. Jim had been swished by the Doctor in the Fourth Form Room, and his sensations before execution reproduced themselves. Mark seemed cool and collected. "Sit down," said Billy. "Open your books." Mark laid his Thucydides upon the table. "Bless my soul!" ejaculated Billy. He had pushed up his spectacles while he was speaking. Now, he polished a pair of pince-nez and popped them on his nose. Nervousness is contagious. "We have c-c-come here to t-t-tell you, s-sir, s-s-something which you ought to know." The house-master blinked, and glanced at both doors. One communicated with the passage, the other opened into the drawing-room, where his wife was playing one of Strauss's waltzes: Wein, Weib und Gesang. Whenever Jim heard this waltz he could conjure up a vision of that square, cosy, book-lined room, the big desk littered with papers, and behind it the burly figure of Billy, his eyes blinking interrogation. He let Mark take his own time. "Something wrong in the house?" said Billy. "Yes, sir." Billy seized a quill pen, and began to bite it. "Isn't this a serious step for you boys to take?" he asked suddenly. "Yes, sir." His gravity became portentous. Perhaps he feared an abominable revelation. "You both understand," he coughed nervously, "that I may be compelled to act on what you choose to tell me; and if what you have to say implicates—er—others, if others may—er—have to—er—suffer, perhaps severely," he nodded so emphatically that his pince-nez fell off, "it may be well for you to—er—in fact—to," he blew his nose violently, "to bid me—Good night." "Not yet," said Mark firmly. Billy's hesitation vanished. "Go on," he said curtly. "Speak plainly, and conceal nothing." Mark told his story. He made no mention of the pantry window, nor of the meetings after lock-up. For the rest, he spoke with a conciseness and practical common sense which filled Jim with admiration. As he was concluding, Billy began to smile. "You are both good fellows, and I'm obliged to you. You must dine with me. I shall pull a string or two, and our—er—marionettes, mark that word; it is pat; our marionettes shall dance elsewhere." "Not Archie?" gasped Mark. "No. We can't spare Archibald. I undertake to handle him. Silly fellow, very silly fellow! His father and mother put a better head on your shoulders, my boy"; he tapped Mark's cheek. "And now open old Thicksides. Eh, what? you know your lesson? Then let's hear it." Jim got rather red. "I shan't put you on, Corrance, but Samphire minor and I will construe for your benefit. Fire away, Samphire minor." The boys went back to their room to find Archie at full length on the sofa. His greeting justified Billy's sagacity in keeping Mark to construe Thucydides. "What a time you fellows have been! I suppose Billy gave you half a dozen readings. Well, let's have 'em, late though it is. I must get my remove this half." So no suspicion was excited. Within the week Bubble and Squeak mysteriously disappeared, and Samphire major had an interview with his house-master. What passed was not revealed at the time, but, later, Archie gave Mark some details, which are set down with the premiss that a minor canon of Westchester Cathedral is speaking, not a Fifth Form boy at Harrow. "Do you remember those girls at Brown's?" he said. "Well, I fell in love with one of them. What? You knew it? Oh! Oh, indeed! The whole school knew it? Ah, well, Billy knew it too. Sent for me, and behaved like a gentleman. Made me blubber like a baby. I give you my word I never felt quite so cheap. It wasn't what he said, but what he left unsaid. And I promised him that I would have nothing more to do with Squeak. He told me a thing or two about her which opened my eyes; she was a baggage, but pretty, very pretty: an alluring little spider. I felt at the time I would go through fire and water to her——" "Not to mention a pantry window," said Mark, grinning. "You don't mean to say that you knew that too? Well, well, it might have proved an ugly scrape." For a year after this incident, the sun shone serenely in the Samphire firmament. The brothers moved up out of Paradise, into the Second Fifth, Paradise Lost, and thence into the First Fifth, Paradise Regained, singing pÆans of praise and thanksgiving. This was at the beginning of Mark's third summer half, the half when Archie made a great score at Lord's, carrying out his bat for eighty-seven runs in the first innings; the half, also, when Mark received his "cap,"[#] the night before the match wherein Billy's became cock house at cricket! [#] The "cap" is the house cricket-cap, given to members of the house eleven. CHAPTER II BILLY'S v. BASHAN'S During this summer half Mark and Jim built some castles, in which, as you will see, they were not called upon to live. If Fate made men dwell in the mansions of their dreams how many of us would find ourselves queerly housed? Mark's castles were military fortresses. He had the pipeclay in his marrow, whereas Jim saw the Queen's red through his friend's spectacles. The boys studied the lives of famous captains, from Miltiades to Wellington, and at tea and breakfast would fight the world's great battles with such well-seasoned troops as chipped plates and saucers, a battered salt-cellar and pepper-pot, a glass milk-jug, and a Britannia metal teapot, which would not pour properly. India, and in particular the Indian frontier, was their battlefield: the scene of a strife such as the world has not yet witnessed; a struggle between the Slav and the Anglo-Saxon for the supremacy of the world. Mark boldly reached for a marshal's bÂton; Jim modestly contented himself with the full pay of a general, the Victoria Cross, and a snug little crib in a good hunting country. Sometimes Archie deigned to listen to them, but he was not encouraging in his comments. "You, a soldier!" he would exclaim, looking at Mark's narrow chest and skinny arms; "why you'd die of fatigue in your first campaign. I advise you to be a schoolmaster." "You have f-f-forgotten" (most boys would have said "you don't know"), "you have forgotten," Mark replied, "that Alexander was a small man; and Nelson, and Napoleon, and Wellington." "Pooh, they were hard as nails." That same evening Mark said: "I'm g-going to the Gym" (gymnasium) "every day, till I get hard as nails." "Not in the summer?" Jim exclaimed. "Yes; I'll have the place to myself—so much the better." He worked indefatigably, and Jim was asked to feel his biceps about four times a day. About the middle of June Jim made a discovery. High up, on one of the inside panels of his bedstead, he found the name of a gallant fellow who had fought gloriously in the Indian Mutiny. "I'd like to sleep in his bed," said Mark. "What a rum chap you are!" Jim exclaimed. "If I sleep in his bed I may d-dream of him," Mark replied. They changed beds with mutual satisfaction; for Jim's had a trick of collapsing in the middle of the night. Later on Jim made another discovery: subjective this time. Mark was overdoing himself: working mind and muscle too hard. Never was spirit more willing, nor flesh more weak. One day, a sultry day in the middle of July, he fainted in school. That night Billy detained Jim after prayers. "Entre nous, I am uneasy about Samphire minor," he said. "And as two heads are better than one I've sent for you, his friend and—er—mine. What do you suggest?" At that moment Jim would have gone to the rack for Billy. As Jim suggested nothing, Billy continued: "The case presents difficulties, but difficulties give an edge to life—don't they?" "Sometimes," said Jim cautiously; for Billy had a trick of leading fellows on to make fools of themselves. "Samphire minor goes too fast at his fences." Billy knew that any allusion to the hunting-field was not wasted on Jim. "And the fences," continued Billy thoughtfully, "are rather big for Samphire minor." "And he won't ride cunning," added Jim. "Just so. Thank you, my dear fellow; you follow me, I see. Now Samphire major, big though he is, takes advantage of the—er—gaps." "Rather," said Jim. "Humph!" Billy stroked his ample chin. Jim was reflecting that his tutor was too heavy for a first-flight man, but that in his day he must have been a thruster. "In fine, not to put too fine a point on it, we must interfere." "Yes," said Jim, swelling visibly. "We must head him off, throw him out, teach him that valuable lesson, how to reculer pour mieux sauter." If Billy had a weakness (a faible, he would have said), it was in the use of French, which he spoke perfectly. "Ye-es," said Jim, not so confidently. "Now, how would you set about it?" "I, sir? If you please, sir, I don't see my way, but I'll follow your lead blindly, sir!" Billy smiled, and polished his pince-nez. "We shall move slow. The blind leading the blind. Both of you expect to be in the Sixth next September? Yes. Suppose—I only say suppose—suppose you were left—where you are?" "Oh, sir!" "Come, come, I thought Paradise Regained was the jolliest form in the school." "It is," said Jim, "but——" "You are rather young and small for the Sixth. Why, God bless me! only the other day you were fags. Now, if I gave you my word that there would be no real loss of time, that you would fare farther and better by taking it easy, what would you say?" "I say—all right, sir." "Good boy! Wise boy! Leave the rest to me! I shall see that Samphire major goes up, which is fitting. The height will give him—er—poise, not avoirdupois, of which he has enough already. Samphire minor will not complain if you keep him company. Good night. À propos—will you and Samphire minor dine with us next Tuesday? A glass of champagne will do neither of you any harm." Next term Mark became less angular, and some colour came into his thin cheeks. Both Jim and he played football hard in the hope of obtaining a "fez."[#] Harrow, like Eton and Winchester, has a game of football peculiarly its own, differing from "socker" in that it is lawful to give what is called "yards." A boy, for instance, dribbling the ball, may turn and kick it to one of his own side. If this manoeuvre be executed neatly, the other boy catches it and yells: "Yards!" Then the opposite side retires three yards from the spot where the ball was caught, and the catcher is given a free kick, which at a critical point of the game may prove of value. In Billy's brute force rather than finesse informed the play, a fact which had not escaped Mark's notice. |
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