Horace Annesley Vachell

"'It must be a gran' thing to be a colledge profissor.'

"'Not much to do,' said Mr. Hennessy.

"'But a gr—reat deal to say,' said Mr. Dooley."

When John returned to the Hill at the beginning of the winter term the great change had taken place. Rutford had assumed the duties of Professor of Greek at a Scotch University; Warde was in possession of the Manor; Scaife and Desmond and John—but not the Caterpillar—had got their remove. They were Fifth Form boys—and in tails! John, it is true, although tougher and broader, was still short for his years and juvenile of appearance, but Scaife and Desmond were quite big fellows, and their new coats became them mightily. Trieve was Head of the House; Lovell, Captain of the House football Eleven and in the Lower Sixth.

"Lovell will have to behave himself now," the Duffer remarked to Scaife, who laughed derisively, as he answered—

"He couldn't, even if he tried."

Warde welcomed the House at lock-up, and introduced the boys to his wife and daughter. Mrs. Warde had a plain, pleasant face. Miss Warde, however, was a beauty, and she knew it, the coquette, and had known it from the hour she could peep into a mirror. The Caterpillar pronounced her "fetching." Being only fifteen, she wore her hair in a plait tied by a huge bow, and the hem of her skirt barely touched the neatest ankle on Harrow Hill. Give her a saucy, pink-and-white face, pop a pert, tip-tilted nose into the middle of it just above a pouting red mouth, and just below her father's lapis-lazuli eyes, and you will see Iris Warde. Her hair was reddish, not red—call it warm chestnut; and she had a dimple.

After the introductions, mother and daughter left the hall. Warde stood up, inviting the House to sit down. Warde was about half the width of the late Rutford, but somehow he seemed to take up more room. He had spent the summer holidays in Switzerland, climbing terrific peaks. Snow and sun had coloured his clear complexion. John, who saw beneath tanned skins, reflected that Warde seemed to be saturated with fresh air and all the sweet, clean things which one associates with mountains. "He loves hills," thought John, "and he loves our Hill." Warde began to speak in his jerky, confidential tones. Dirty Dick had always been insufferably dull, pompous, and didactic.

"I don't like speechmaking," said Warde, "but I want to put one thing to you as strongly as a man may. I have always wished to be master of the Manor. Some men may think mine a small ambition. Master of a house at Harrow? Nothing big about that. Perhaps not. But I think it big. And it is big—for me. Understand that I'm in love with my job—head over heels. I'd sooner be master of the Manor than Prime Minister. I couldn't tackle his work. Enough of that. Now, forget for a moment that I'm a master. Let me talk as an Old Harrovian, an old Manorite who remembers everything, ay—everything, good and bad. Some lucky fellows remember the good only; we call them optimists. Others remember the bad. Pessimists those. Put me between the two. The other day I had an eye, one eye, fixed on the top of a certain peak—by Jove! how I longed to reach that peak!—but the other eye was on a crevasse at my feet. Had I kept both eyes on the peak, I should be lying now at the bottom of that crevasse. You take me? Well, twenty years ago I sat here, in hall, my last night in the old house, and I hoped that one day I might come back. Why? This is between ourselves, a confidence. I came to the Manor from a beastly school, such schools are hardly to be found nowadays—a hardened young sinner at thirteen. The Manor licked me into shape. Speaking generally, I suppose the tone of the house insensibly communicated itself to me. The Manor was cock-house at games and work. I began by shirking both. But the spirit of the Hill was too much for me. I couldn't shirk that. Some jolly old boys, we all know them and like them, are always saying that their early school-days were the happiest of their lives. They're fond of telling this big lie just as they're settling down to their claret. I really believe that they believe what they say, but it is a lie. The smallest boy here knows it's a lie. Let's hark back a bit. I said I was licked into shape—and I mean licked. I had a lot of really hard fagging—much harder than any of you boys know—I was sent up and swished, I had whoppings innumerable, and it wasn't pleasant. My mother had pinched herself to send me here, because my father had been here before me; and I wondered why she did it. At that time I couldn't see why cheaper schools shouldn't be not only as good as Harrow, but perhaps better. Not till I was in the Fifth did I get a glimmering of what my mother and the Manor were doing for me. When I got into the Sixth and into the Eleven, I knew. And my last year here made up, and more, too, for the previous four. I enjoyed that year thoroughly; I had ceased to be a slacker. I tell you, all of you, that happiness, like liberty, must be earned before we can enjoy it. And you are sent here to earn it. I'm not going to keep you much longer. I have come to the marrow of the matter. I owe the Manor a debt which I hope to pay to—you. Just as you, in turn, will pay back to boys not yet born the money your people have gladly spent on you, and other greater things besides. I want to see this house at the top of the tree again: cock-house at cricket, cock-house at footer, with a Balliol Scholar in it, and a school racquet-player. And now Dumbleton is going to bring in a little champagne. We'll drink high health and fellowship to the Manor and the Hill!"

His face broke into the smile his form knew so well; he sat down, as the house roared its welcome to a friend.

As soon as the champagne was drunk ("Dumber" was careful to put more froth than wine into the glasses of the kids), the boys filed out of the Hall. The Duffer, Desmond, John, and the Caterpillar assembled in John's room. Desmond, you may be sure, was afire with resolution. Warde was the right sort, a clinker, a first flighter. And he meant to stick by him through thick and thin. John said nothing. The Caterpillar drawled out—

"Warde didn't surprise me—much. I've found out that he's one of the Wardes of Warde-Pomeroy, the real old stuff. Our families intermarried in Elizabeth's reign."

"Chance to do it again, Caterpillar," said the Duffer. "Warde's daughter is an uncommonly pretty girl."

Then the Caterpillar used the epithet "fetching."

"She's fetching, very fetching," he said. "It's a pleasure to remember that we're of kin. One must be civil to Warde. He's a well bred 'un."

"You think too much of family," said Desmond.

"One can't," replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. "One knows that family is not everything, but, other things being equal, it means refinement. The first of the Howards was a swineherd, I dare say, but generations of education, of association with the best, have turned them from swine-herds into gentlemen, and it takes generations to do it."

"Good old Caterpillar!" said the Duffer.

"Not my own," said the Caterpillar; adding, as usual, "My governor's, you know."

"Warde hasn't a soft job ahead of him," said Desmond.

"Soft or hard, he'll handle it his own way."

Desmond went out, wondering what had become of Scaife. Scaife was in his room, talking to Lovell senior, who spent a fortnight with Scaife's people in Scotland, fishing and grousing. Desmond had been asked also, but his father, rather to CÆsar's disgust (for the Scaife moor was famous), had refused to let him go. Lovell and Scaife were arguing about something which Desmond could not understand.

"I left it to my partner," said Scaife, "and the fool went no trumps holding two missing suits. The enemy doubled, my partner redoubled, and the others redoubled again: that made it ninety-six a trick. The fellow on the left held my partner's missing suits; he made the Little Slam, and scored nearly six hundred below the line. It gave 'em the rubber, too, and I had to fork out a couple of quid."

"What are you jawing about, Demon?" said Desmond.

"Bridge. It's the new game. It's going to be the rage. Do you play bridge, CÆsar?"

"No. I want to learn it."

"All right, I must teach you."

"We could get up a four in this house," said Lovell. "We three and the Caterpillar. He plays, I know. The Colonel is one of the cracks at the Turf. It would be an awful lark. A mild gamble: small points—eh? A bob a hundred. What do you say, CÆsar?"

Desmond hesitated. Bridge had not yet reached its delirious stage. But Desmond had seen it played, had heard his father praise it as the most fascinating of card-games, and had determined to learn it at the first convenient opportunity. None the less Warde's words still echoed in his ear.

"I think we ought to give Warde a chance," he said.

"You don't mean to say you were taken in by him?" said Lovell, contemptuously.

Desmond burst into enthusiastic praise of Warde and his methods. Lovell shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room, nodding to Scaife, but ignoring Desmond.

"You must go canny with Lovell," said Scaife. "He's the fellow who ought to give you your 'fez' after the first house-game."

"Never mind that. You won't play bridge, Demon, will you?"

"Why not?" said Scaife. "Where's the harm? Your governor plays——"

"Yes; but——"

"You're afraid of getting sacked?"

"I'm not."

"All right; I'll take that back. You're not a funk, CÆsar, but you're so easily humbugged. Warde caught you with his 'pi jaw' and a glass of gooseberry."

"The champagne was all right, wasn't it?"

"Oh, ho! So you do mean to stand in with Warde against Lovell and me? Thanks for being so candid. Now I'll be candid with you. I like Lovell. There's no nonsense about him. He don't put on frills because he's in the Sixth, and he don't mean to take to their sneaking, spying ways. He's just as anxious as Warde to see the Manor cock-house at footer and cricket, and I'm as keen as he is; but we stop there. The Balliol Scholarship may go hang. And as for sympathy and fellowship and pulling together between masters and boys, I never did believe in it, and never shall. My hand is against the masters, so long as they interfere with anything I want to do. I like bridge, and I mean to play it. And I'll take jolly good care that I'm not nailed. That's part of the fun, as the drinking used to be. I chucked that because it wasn't good enough; but bridge is ripping, and, take my word for it, you'll be keener than I when you begin."

"Perhaps. But I'm not going to begin here."

"Right—oh!"

Scaife turned aside, whistling, but out of the corner of his shrewd eye he marked the expression of Desmond's face, the colour ebbing and flowing in the round, boyish cheeks, the perplexity on the brow. Then he spoke in a different voice.

"Don't worry, old chap. You've stuck to me through thick and thin, and I'm grateful, really and truly. You're right, and I'm wrong; I always am wrong. I was looking forward to larks. If you count 'em purple sins, I don't blame you for letting me go to the devil by myself."

"I never said bridge was a purple sin."

"Warde thinks it is. If you're going to look at life here with his eyes, you'll have to rename things. Babies play Beggar my Neighbour for chocolates; why shouldn't we play bridge for a bob a hundred? The game is splendid for the brain; ten thousand times better than translating Greek choruses."

"But it is—gambling, Demon; you can't get away from that."

"Pooh! It's gambling if I bet you a 'dringer' that you won't make ten runs in a house-match; it's gambling if I raffle a picture and you take a sixpenny ticket. Are you going to give up that sort of gambling?"

"No; but——"

"What would Warde say to our co-operative system of work—eh? You're not prepared to go the whole hog? You want to pick and choose. Good! But give me the same right, that's all. Play bridge with your old pals, or don't play, just as you please."

No more was said. Scaife's manner rather than his matter confounded the younger and less experienced boy. Scaife, too, tackled problems which many men prefer to leave alone. Here heredity cropped up. Scaife's sire and grandsire were earning their bread before they were sixteen. Of necessity they faced and overcame obstacles which the ordinary Public School-boy never meets till he leaves the University.

For some time after this bridge was not mentioned. Lovell, acting, possibly, under advice from Scaife, treated Desmond courteously, and gave him his "fez" after the first house-game. Both boys now were members of the Manor cricket and football Elevens, and, as such, persons of distinction in their small world. Scaife, moreover, began to play football with such extraordinary dash and brilliancy, that it seemed to be quite on the cards that he might get his School Flannels. This possibility, and the Greek in the Fifth, absorbed his energies for the first six weeks of the winter quarter. John had come back to Scaife's room to prepare work. Desmond felt that Scaife had been generous in proposing that John should join them, because in many small ways it had become evident that the Demon disliked John, although he still spoke of the tight place out of which John had hauled him. Through Scaife John received his "fez"; and when John wore it for the first time, Scaife came up and said, smiling—

"I'm nearly even with you, Verney."

"What do you mean?" said John.

"You know well enough what I mean," said Scaife, winking his eye maliciously.

John flushed, because in his heart he did know. But when he told Egerton what Scaife had said, that experienced man of the world turned up his nose.

"Just like him," he said. "He wants you to feel that he has wiped out his debt."

"Do you think my 'fez' ought to have been given to young Lovell?"

The Caterpillar, who played back for the Manor, considered the question.

"I don't know," he said. "You are pretty nearly equal; but it's a fact that the Demon turned the scale. He pointed out to Lovell that if he gave a 'fez' to his young brother, the house might accuse him of favouritism. That did the trick."

This made John uneasy and unhappy for a week or two; but the consciousness that another might be better entitled to the coveted "fez" made him play up with such energy that he succeeded in proving to all critics that he had honestly earned what luck had bestowed on him.

During the last week of October, John began those long walks with Desmond which, afterwards, he came to regard as perhaps the most delightful hours spent at Harrow. Scaife detested walking. He had his father's power of focusing attention and energy upon a single object. For the moment he was mad about football. Talk about books, scenery, people, bored him, and he said so with his usual frankness and impatience of restraint. Desmond, on the other hand, was also like his father, inasmuch as his tastes were catholic. He was a bit of a naturalist, learned in the lore of woods and fields, and he liked to talk about books, and he liked to talk about his home. Simple John would sooner hear CÆsar talk than listen to the heavenly choir. So it came to pass that once a week at least the boys would stroll down the avenue at Orley Farm (where Anthony Trollope's sad boyhood was passed), or take the Northwick Walk, which winds through meadows to the Bridge, or visit John Lyon's farm at Preston, or, getting signed for Bill, attempt a longer ramble to Ruislip Reservoir, or Oxhey Wood, or Headstone with its moated grange, or Horsington Hill with its long-stretching view across the Uxbridge plain.

Very soon it became the natural thing for CÆsar to give John a glimpse, at least, of whatever floated in and out of his mind. John, being himself a creature of reserves, could not quite understand this unlocking of doors, but he appreciated his privileges. CÆsar's ingenuousness, sympathy, and impulsiveness, seemed the more enchanting because John himself was of the look-before-you-leap, think-before-you-speak, sort. One Sunday evening they were hurrying back to Chapel, when they passed a woman carrying a heavy child. The poor creature appeared to be almost fainting with fatigue and possibly hunger. Her pinched face, her bent figure, her thin garments, bespoke a passionate protest against conditions which obviously she was powerless to avert or control. The boys glanced at her with pitying eyes as they passed. Then Desmond said quickly—

"I say, Jonathan, she looks as if she was going to fall down."

John, seeing what was in his friend's mind, said—

"We must hurry up, or we shall miss Chapel."

They offered the woman sixpences, and blushes, because through the tattered shawl might be seen a shrunken bosom.

The woman stared, stammered, and burst into tears.

"We shall miss Chapel," John repeated.

"Hang Chapel," said Desmond.

He was looking at the child. When the woman took the silver, she let the child slip to the ground, where it lay inert.

"What's the matter with it?" said Desmond.

Half sobbing, the woman explained that the child had sprained its ankle.

"I'm just about done," she gasped; "an' the sight o' you two young gen'lemen runnin' up the 'ill finished me. I ain't the leaky sort," she added fiercely, still gasping and trembling.

Then she bent down and tried to lift the heavy child, which moaned feebly.

"You run on, Jonathan," said Desmond.

"Why?"

"I'm going to carry this kid up the hill."

"I'll help."

"No—hook it, you ass."

"I won't hook it."

Between them they carried the child as far as the Speech-room, where a policeman accepted a shilling, and gave in return a positive assurance that he would see woman and child to their destination. When the boys were alone, John said—

"CÆsar——"

"Well?"

"What a fellow you are! I wouldn't have thought of that. It was splendid."

"Oh, shut up." There was a slight pause; then CÆsar said defiantly, "I thought of carrying that kid; but I wouldn't have done it, unless I'd known that every boy was safe in Chapel. I couldn't have faced the chaff. And—you could."

They were punished for cutting Chapel, because CÆsar refused to give the reason which would have saved them.

"I'd have told the truth," he admitted to John, "if I could have shouldered that kid with the Manorites looking on."

John agreed that this was an excellent and a CÆsarean (he coined the adjective on this occasion) reason.

Among the Fifth Form boys of the Manor was a big, coarse-looking youth of the name of Beaumont-Greene. Everybody called him Beaumont-Greene in full, because upon his first appearance at Bill he had stopped the line of boys by refusing to answer to the name of Greene.

"My name," said he, in a shrill pipe, "is Beaumont-Greene, and we spell the Greene with a final 'e'."

Beaumont-Greene was a type of boy, unhappily, too common at all Public Schools. He had no feeling whatever for Harrow, save that it was a place where it behoved a boy to escape punishment if he could, and to run, hot foot, towards anything which would yield pleasure to his body. He was known to the Manorites as a funk at footer, and a prodigious consumer of "food" at the Creameries. His father, having accumulated a large fortune in manufacturing what was advertised in most of the public prints as the "Imperishable, Seamless, Whale-skin Boot," gave his son plenty of money. As a Lower Boy, Beaumont-Greene had but a sorry time of it. Somebody discovered that he was what Gilbert once described as an "imperfect ablutioner." The Caterpillar made a point of telling new boys the nature of the punishment meted out to the unclean. He had assisted at the "toshing" of Beaumont-Greene.

"A nasty job," the Caterpillar would remark, looking at his own speckless finger-nails: "but it had to be done. We took the Greene person" (the Caterpillar alone refused to defame the fine name of Beaumont by linking it to Greene) "and placed him naked in a large tosh. Into that tosh the house was invited to pour any fluid that could be spared. One forgets things; but, unless I'm mistaken, the particular sheep-wash used was made up of lemonade, syrups, ink—plenty of that—milk (I bought a quart myself), tooth-powder, paraffin, and a cake of Sapolio—Monkey Brand! We scrubbed the Yahoo thoroughly, washed its teeth, ears, hair, and then we dried it. I don't know who smeared marmalade on to the towel, but the drying part was not very successful. Rather tough—eh? Yes, very tough—on us, but effective. The Greene person has toshed regularly ever since. At least, so I'm told; I never go near him myself, and he's considerate enough to keep out of my way."

Beaumont-Greene had not, it is true, the appetite for reckless breaking of the law which distinguished Lovell and his particular pals; but Lovell's good qualities cancelled to a certain extent what was vicious. A fine cricketer, a plucky football-player, he might have proved a credit to his house had a master other than Dirty Dick been originally in command of it. Before he was out of the Shell, he had declared war against Authority. Beaumont-Greene, on the other hand, detested games, and sneered at those who played them. Pulpy, pimply, gross in mind and body, he stood for that heavy, amorphous resistance to good, which is so difficult to overcome.

During the first half of the winter quarter, John saw but little of EsmÉ Kinloch. It is one of the characteristics of a Public School that the boys—as in the greater world for which it is a preparation—are in layers. Some layers overlap; others never touch. Fluff was a fag; his friend John was in the Fifth Form, and a "fez." In a word, an Atlantic rolled between them. John, however, would often give Fluff a "con," and occasionally they would walk together. Fluff was no longer the delicate, girlish child of a year ago. He had bloomed into a very handsome boy, attractive, like all the members of his mother's family, with engaging manners, and he had also shown signs of developing into a cricketer. Fluff could paddle his own canoe, provided, of course, that he kept out of the rapids.

But about the middle of the term John noticed that Fluff was losing colour and spirits, the latter never very exuberant. It was not in John's nature to ask questions which he might answer for himself by taking pains to do so. He watched Fluff closely. Then he demanded bluntly—

"What's up?"

"Nothing."

"That's a cram," said John, severely. "I didn't believe you'd tell me a cram, EsmÉ."

"You don't care tuppence whether I tell crams or not—now."

John weighed the "now" deliberately.

"That's another cram," he said slowly. "Has anybody been rotting you?"

Silence. John repeated the question. Still silence. Then John added—

"You know, EsmÉ, that I shall stick to you till I find out what's up; so you may as well save time by telling me at once."

"It's Beaumont-Greene," faltered Fluff.

"That fat beast! What's he done?"

"He hasn't done much—yet."

"Tell everything!"

"He came into my room one night and turned me up in my bed. I woke, on my head, in the dark, half-smothered, and couldn't think what had happened; it was simply awful. Then I heard his beastly voice saying, 'If I let you down, will you do what I ask you?' I'd have promised anything to get out of that horrible, choking prison, and now he threatens to turn me up every night, and I dream of it——"

"Go on," said John, grimly. "No, you needn't go on. I can guess what this low cad is up to."

"He said he'd be my friend; as if I'd have a beast like that for a friend."

"Did you tell him that?"

"Yes, I did."

"You're a good-plucked 'un, EsmÉ. And he's made it warm for you ever since?"

"Yes."

"But he hasn't turned you up again?"

"N-no; but he will. I'd almost sooner he'd do it, and have done with it. I can't sleep."

"Now, don't be a silly fool," John commanded. "I'm going to think this out, and I'll bet I make that fat, pimply beast sit up and howl."

"Thanks awfully, John."

But the more John thought of what he had undertaken to do, the less clearly he saw his way to do it. Evidently Beaumont-Greene was too prudent to bully Fluff; he had resorted to the crueller alternative of terrorizing him. Lawrence would have settled this fellow's hash—so John reflected—in a jiffy, but Trieve, "Miss Trieve," was hopelessly incapable. Presently inspiration came. He seized an opportunity when Beaumont-Greene happened to be by himself; then he marched boldly into his room, leaving the door ajar.

"Hullo! what do you want?"

Beaumont-Greene was sitting opposite the fire, reading a novel and leisurely consuming macaroons.

"I want you to leave young Kinloch alone—please."

Beaumont-Greene nearly choked; then he spluttered out—

"Say that again, will you?"

"I want you to leave young Kinloch alone."

"Really? Anything else?"

"Nothing more, thank you."

Beaumont-Greene slowly raised himself out of his chair and glared at John, whose head came to his chin.

"You've plenty of cheek."

"What I have isn't spotty, anyway."

John saw the veins begin to swell in Beaumont-Greene's throat. He thought with relief of the door ajar, but it was part of his policy—a carefully devised policy—to provoke, if possible, a scene. Then others would interfere, explanations would be in order, and public opinion would accomplish the rest.

"You infernal young jackanapes!"

"You pretty pet!"

"Get out of my room! Hook it!"

"I want to," said John, coolly enough, although his heart was throbbing. "It's horribly fuggy in here, and I've Jambi[26] to do; but I'm not going till you give me your word that you'll leave young Kinloch alone."

"If you don't walk out I'll chuck you out."

"You must catch me first," said John.

And then a very pretty chase took place. Beaumont-Greene, fat, scant of breath, full of macaroons, began to pursue John round and round the table. John skilfully interposed chairs, sofa-cushions, anything he could lay hands on. Passing the washstand, he secured an enormous sponge, which an instant later flew souse into the face of the grampus. An abridged edition of Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon followed. This nearly brought the big fellow to grass. In his rage he, too, began to hurl what objects happened to be within reach, but he was a shocking bad shot; he missed, or John dodged every time. John did not miss. Finally, as John had foreseen, a couple of Sixth Form fellows rushed in.

"What's the meaning of this infernal row?" asked one.

"Ask him," said John.

Authority stared at Beaumont-Greene, and then at his wrecked room.

"I told him to hook it, and he wouldn't," spluttered the gasping Greene.

"Why?"

Half a dozen other fellows had come into the room. Amongst them the Duffer and the Caterpillar.

"I wanted to hook it," John explained, "because it's so beastly fuggy; but Beaumont-Greene wouldn't promise me to do something he ought to do."

"This is mysterious."

"The swaggering young blackguard cheeked me," growled Greene.

"I was very polite—at first," pleaded John.

"Hook it now, anyway," said Authority.

"Not till he promises. If you turn me out, I'll come back after you're gone."

"What is it you want him to promise?"

John had achieved his object.

"I want him to leave young Kinloch alone."

The two Sixth Form boys glanced at each other; at John; at the gross, spotted face of Beaumont-Greene. Then the senior said coldly—

"I suppose you have no objection, Beaumont-Greene, to promising Verney or any one else that you will leave young Kinloch alone?"

"I've never laid a finger on the kid," growled the big fellow; but he looked pale and frightened.

"Then you promise—eh?"

"Yes."

"On your word of honour?"

"Yes."

That night John told Fluff with great glee how Beaumont-Greene had been made to "sit up and howl."