Chapter IV: Part 4

The atmosphere in the carriage became charged with optimism. It seemed a simple thing to defeat a side which was practically a Ripton "A" team. The centre three-quarters were there still, it was true, but Allardyce and Drummond ought to be able to prevent the halves ever getting the ball out to them. The team looked on those two unknown halves as timid novices, who would lose their heads at the kick-off. As a matter of fact, the system of football teaching at Ripton was so perfect, and the keenness so great, that the second fifteen was nearly as good as the first every year. But the Wrykyn team did not know this, with the exception of Allardyce, who kept his knowledge to himself; and they arrived at Ripton jaunty and confident.

Keith, the Ripton captain, who was one of the centre three-quarters who had made so many holes in the Wrykyn defence in the previous term, met the team at the station, and walked up to the school with them, carrying Allardyce's bag.

"You seem to have lost a good many men at Christmas," said Allardyce. "We were reading the _Sportsman_ in the train. Apparently, you've only got ten of your last term's lot. Have they all left?"

The Ripton captain grinned ruefully.

"Not much," he replied. "They're all here. All except Dunn. You remember Dunn? Little thick-set chap who played half. He always had his hair quite tidy and parted exactly in the middle all through the game."

"Oh, yes, I remember Dunn. What's he doing now?"

"Gone to Coopers Hill. Rot, his not going to the Varsity. He'd have walked into his blue."

Allardyce agreed. He had marked Dunn in the match of the previous term, and that immaculate sportsman had made things not a little warm for him.

"Where are all the others, then?" he asked. "Where's that other half of yours? And the rest of the forwards?"

"Mumps," said Keith.

"What!"

"It's a fact. Rot, isn't it? We've had a regular bout of it. Twenty fellows got it altogether. Naturally, four of those were in the team. That's the way things happen. I only wonder the whole scrum didn't have it."

"What beastly luck," said Allardyce. "We had measles like that a couple of years ago in the summer term, and had to play the Incogs and Zingari with a sort of second eleven. We got mopped."

"That's what we shall get this afternoon, I'm afraid," said Keith.

"Oh, no," said Allardyce. "Of course you won't."

And, as events turned out, that was one of the truest remarks he had ever made in his life.

* * * * *

One of the drawbacks to playing Ripton on its own ground was the crowd. Another was the fact that one generally got beaten. But your sportsman can put up with defeat. What he does not like is a crowd that regards him as a subtle blend of incompetent idiot and malicious scoundrel, and says so very loud and clear. It was not, of course, the school that did this. They spent their time blushing for the shouters. It was the patriotic inhabitants of Ripton town who made the school wish that they could be saved from their friends. The football ground at Ripton was at the edge of the school fields, separated from the road by narrow iron railings; and along these railings the choicest spirits of the town would line up, and smoke and yell, and spit and yell again. As Wordsworth wrote, "There are two voices". They were on something like the following lines.

Inside the railings: "Sch-oo-oo-oo-oo-l! Buck up Sch-oo-oo-oo-oo-l!! Get it OUT, Schoo-oo-oo-oo-l!!!"

Outside the railings: "Gow it, Ripton! That's the way, Ripton! Twist his good-old-English-adjectived neck, Ripton! Sit on his forcibly described head, Ripton! Gow it, Ripton! Haw, Haw, Haw! They ain't no use, RIPton! Kick 'im in the eye, RipTON! Haw, Haw, Haw!"

The bursts of merriment signalised the violent downfall of some dangerous opponent.

The school loathed these humble supporters, and occasionally fastidious juniors would go the length of throwing chunks of mud at them through the railings. But nothing discouraged them or abated their fervid desire to see the school win. Every year they seemed to increase in zeal, and they were always in great form at the Wrykyn match.

It would be charitable to ascribe to this reason the gruesome happenings of that afternoon. They needed some explaining away.

* * * * *

Allardyce won the toss, and chose to start downhill, with the wind in his favour. It is always best to get these advantages at the beginning of the game. If one starts against the wind, it usually changes ends at half-time. Amidst a roar from both touch-lines and a volley of howls from the road, a Ripton forward kicked off. The ball flew in the direction of Stanning, on the right wing. A storm of laughter arose from the road as he dropped it. The first scrum was formed on the Wrykyn twenty-five line.

The Ripton forwards got the ball, and heeled with their usual neatness. The Ripton half who was taking the scrum gathered it cleanly, and passed to his colleague. He was a sturdy youth with a dark, rather forbidding face, in which the acute observer might have read signs of the savage. He was of the breed which is vaguely described at public schools as "nigger", a term covering every variety of shade from ebony to light lemon. As a matter of fact he was a half-caste, sent home to England to be educated. Drummond recognised him as he dived forward to tackle him. The last place where they had met had been the roped ring at Aldershot. It was his opponent in the final of the Feathers.

He reached him as he swerved, and they fell together. The ball bounded forward.

"Hullo, Peteiro," he said. "Thought you'd left."

The other grinned recognition.

"Hullo, Drummond."

"Going up to Aldershot this year?"

"Yes. Light-Weight."

"So am I."

The scrum had formed by now, and further conversation was impossible. Drummond looked a little thoughtful as he put the ball in. He had been told that Peteiro was leaving Ripton at Christmas. It was a nuisance his being still at school. Drummond was not afraid of him--he would have fought a champion of the world if the school had expected him to--but he could not help remembering that it was only by the very narrowest margin, and after a terrific three rounds, that he had beaten him in the Feathers the year before. It would be too awful for words if the decision were to be reversed in the coming competition.

But he was not allowed much leisure for pondering on the future. The present was too full of incident and excitement. The withdrawal of the four invalids and the departure of Dunn had not reduced the Ripton team to that wreck of its former self which the Wrykyn fifteen had looked for. On the contrary, their play seemed, if anything, a shade better than it had been in the former match. There was all the old aggressiveness, and Peteiro and his partner, so far from being timid novices and losing their heads, eclipsed the exhibition given at Wrykyn by Waite and Dunn. Play had only been in progress six minutes when Keith, taking a pass on the twenty-five line, slipped past Attell, ran round the back, and scored between the posts. Three minutes later the other Ripton centre scored. At the end of twenty minutes the Wrykyn line had been crossed five times, and each of the tries had been converted.

"_Can't_ you fellows get that ball in the scrum?" demanded Allardyce plaintively, as the team began for the fifth time the old familiar walk to the half-way line. "Pack tight, and get the first shove."

The result of this address was to increase the Ripton lead by four points. In his anxiety to get the ball, one of the Wrykyn forwards started heeling before it was in, and the referee promptly gave a free kick to Ripton for "foot up". As this event took place within easy reach of the Wrykyn goal, and immediately in front of the same, Keith had no difficulty in bringing off the penalty.

By half-time the crowd in the road, hoarse with laughter, had exhausted all their adjectives and were repeating themselves. The Ripton score was six goals, a penalty goal, and two tries to nil, and the Wrykyn team was a demoralised rabble.

The fact that the rate of scoring slackened somewhat after the interval may be attributed to the disinclination of the Riptonians to exert themselves unduly. They ceased playing in the stern and scientific spirit in which they had started; and, instead of adhering to an orthodox game, began to enjoy themselves. The forwards no longer heeled like a machine. They broke through ambitiously, and tried to score on their own account. When the outsides got as far as the back, they did not pass. They tried to drop goals. In this way only twenty-two points were scored after half-time. Allardyce and Drummond battled on nobly, but with their pack hopelessly outclassed it was impossible for them to do anything of material use. Barry, on the wing, tackled his man whenever the latter got the ball, but, as a rule, the centres did not pass, but attacked by themselves. At last, by way of a fitting conclusion to the rout, the Ripton back, catching a high punt, ran instead of kicking, and, to the huge delight of the town contingent, scored. With this incident the visiting team drained the last dregs of the bitter cup. Humiliation could go no further. Almost immediately afterwards the referee blew his whistle for "No side".

"Three cheers for Wrykyn," said Keith.

To the fifteen victims it sounded ironical.

XVI

DRUMMOND GOES INTO RETIREMENT

The return journey of a school team after a crushing defeat in a foreign match is never a very exhilarating business. Those members of the side who have not yet received their colours are wondering which of them is to be sacrificed to popular indignation and "chucked": the rest, who have managed to get their caps, are feeling that even now two-thirds of the school will be saying that they are not worth a place in the third fifteen; while the captain, brooding apart, is becoming soured at the thought that Posterity will forget what little good he may have done, and remember only that it was in his year that the school got so many points taken off them by So-and-So. Conversation does not ripple and sparkle during these home-comings. The Wrykyn team made the journey in almost unbroken silence. They were all stiff and sore, and their feelings were such as to unfit them for talking to people.

The school took the thing very philosophically--a bad sign. When a school is in a healthy, normal condition, it should be stirred up by a bad defeat by another school, like a disturbed wasps' nest. Wrykyn made one or two remarks about people who could not play footer for toffee, and then let the thing drop.

Sheen was too busy with his work and his boxing to have much leisure for mourning over this latest example of the present inefficiency of the school. The examination for the Gotford was to come off in two days, and the inter-house boxing was fixed for the following Wednesday. In five days, therefore, he would get his chance of retrieving his lost place in the school. He was certain that he could, at any rate make a very good show against anyone in the school, even Drummond. Joe Bevan was delighted with his progress, and quoted Shakespeare volubly in his admiration. Jack Bruce and Francis added their tribute, and the knife and boot boy paid him the neatest compliment of all by refusing point-blank to have any more dealings with him whatsoever. His professional duties, explained the knife and boot boy, did not include being punched in the heye by blokes, and he did not intend to be put upon.

"You'll do all right," said Jack Bruce, as they were motoring home, "if they'll let you go in for it all. But how do you know they will? Have they chosen the men yet?"

"Not yet. They don't do it till the day before. But there won't be any difficulty about that. Drummond will let me have a shot if he thinks I'm good enough."

"Oh, you're good enough," said Bruce.

And when, on Monday evening, Francis, on receipt of no fewer than four blows in a single round--a record, shook him by the hand and said that if ever he happened to want a leetle darg that was a perfect bag of tricks and had got a pedigree, mind you, he, Francis, would be proud to supply that animal, Sheen felt that the moment had come to approach Drummond on the subject of the house boxing. It would be a little awkward at first, and conversation would probably run somewhat stiffly; but all would be well once he had explained himself.

But things had been happening in his absence which complicated the situation. Allardyce was having tea with Drummond, who had been stopping in with a sore throat. He had come principally to make arrangements for the match between his house and Seymour's in the semi-final round of the competition.

"You're looking bad," he said, taking a seat.

"I'm feeling bad," said Drummond. For the past few days he had been very much out of sorts. He put it down to a chill caught after the Ripton match. He had never mustered up sufficient courage to sponge himself with cold water after soaking in a hot bath, and he occasionally suffered for it.

"What's up?" inquired Allardyce.

"Oh, I don't know. Sort of beastly feeling. Sore throat. Nothing much. Only it makes you feel rather rotten."

Allardyce looked interested.

"I say," he said, "it looks as if--I wonder. I hope you haven't."

"What?"

"Mumps. It sounds jolly like it."

"Mumps! Of course I've not. Why should I?"

Allardyce produced a letter from his pocket. "I got this from Keith, the Ripton captain, this morning. You know they've had a lot of the thing there. Oh, didn't you? That was why they had such a bad team out."

"Bad team!" murmured Drummond.

"Well, I mean not their best team. They had four of their men down with mumps. Here's what Keith says. Listen. Bit about hoping we got back all right, and so on, first. Then he says--here it is, 'Another of our fellows has got the mumps. One of the forwards; rather a long man who was good out of touch. He developed it a couple of days after the match. It's lucky that all our card games are over. We beat John's, Oxford, last Wednesday, and that finished the card. But it'll rather rot up the House matches. We should have walked the cup, but there's no knowing what will happen now. I hope none of your lot caught the mumps from Browning during the game. It's quite likely, of course. Browning ought not to have been playing, but I had no notion that there was anything wrong with him. He never said he felt bad.' You've got it, Drummond. That's what's the matter with you."

"Oh, rot," said Drummond. "It's only a chill."

But the school doctor, who had looked in at the house to dose a small Seymourite who had indulged too heartily in the pleasures of the table, had other views, and before lock-up Drummond was hurried off to the infirmary.

Sheen went to Drummond's study after preparation had begun, and was surprised to find him out. Not being on speaking terms with a single member of the house, he was always out-of-date as regarded items of school news. As a rule he had to wait until Jack Bruce told him before learning of any occurrence of interest. He had no notion that mumps was the cause of Drummond's absence, and he sat and waited patiently for him in his study till the bell rang for prayers. The only possible explanation that occurred to him was that Drummond was in somebody else's study, and he could not put his theory to the test by going and looking. It was only when Drummond did not put in an appearance at prayers that Sheen began to suspect that something might have happened.

It was maddening not to be able to make inquiries. He had almost decided to go and ask Linton, and risk whatever might be the consequences of such a step, when he remembered that the matron must know. He went to her, and was told that Drummond was in the infirmary.

He could not help seeing that this made his position a great deal more difficult. In ten minutes he could have explained matters to Drummond if he had found him in his study. But it would be a more difficult task to put the thing clearly in a letter.

Meanwhile, it was bed-time, and he soon found his hands too full with his dormitory to enable him to think out the phrasing of that letter. The dormitory, which was recruited entirely from the junior day-room, had heard of Drummond's departure with rejoicings. They liked Drummond, but he was a good deal too fond of the iron hand for their tastes. A night with Sheen in charge should prove a welcome change.

A deafening uproar was going on when Sheen arrived, and as he came into the room somebody turned the gas out. He found some matches on the chest of drawers, and lit it again just in time to see a sportive youth tearing the clothes off his bed and piling them on the floor. A month before he would not have known how to grapple with such a situation, but his evenings with Joe Bevan had given him the habit of making up his mind and acting rapidly. Drummond was wont to keep a swagger-stick by his bedside for the better observance of law and order. Sheen possessed himself of this swagger-stick, and reasoned with the sportive youth. The rest of the dormitory looked on in interested silence. It was a critical moment, and on his handling of it depended Sheen's victory or defeat. If he did not keep his head he was lost. A dormitory is merciless to a prefect whose weakness they have discovered.

Sheen kept his head. In a quiet, pleasant voice, fingering the swagger-stick, as he spoke, in an absent manner, he requested his young friend to re-make the bed--rapidly and completely. For the space of five minutes no sound broke the silence except the rustle of sheets and blankets. At the end of that period the bed looked as good as new.

"Thanks," said Sheen gratefully. "That's very kind of you."

He turned to the rest of the dormitory.

"Don't let me detain you," he said politely. "Get into bed as soon as you like."

The dormitory got into bed sooner than they liked. For some reason the colossal rag they had planned had fizzled out. They were thoughtful as they crept between the sheets. Could these things be?

* * * * *

After much deliberation Sheen sent his letter to Drummond on the following day. It was not a long letter, but it was carefully worded. It explained that he had taken up boxing of late, and ended with a request that he might be allowed to act as Drummond's understudy in the House competitions.

It was late that evening when the infirmary attendant came over with the answer.

Like the original letter, the answer was brief.

"Dear Sheen," wrote Drummond, "thanks for the offer. I am afraid I can't accept it. We must have the best man. Linton is going to box for the House in the Light-Weights."

XVII

SEYMOUR'S ONE SUCCESS

This polite epistle, it may be mentioned, was a revised version of the one which Drummond originally wrote in reply to Sheen's request. His first impulse had been to answer in the four brief words, "Don't be a fool"; for Sheen's letter had struck him as nothing more than a contemptible piece of posing, and he had all the hatred for poses which is a characteristic of the plain and straightforward type of mind. It seemed to him that Sheen, as he expressed it to himself, was trying to "do the boy hero". In the school library, which had been stocked during the dark ages, when that type of story was popular, there were numerous school stories in which the hero retrieved a rocky reputation by thrashing the bully, displaying in the encounter an intuitive but overwhelming skill with his fists. Drummond could not help feeling that Sheen must have been reading one of these stories. It was all very fine and noble of him to want to show that he was No Coward After All, like Leo Cholmondeley or whatever his beastly name was, in _The Lads of St. Ethelberta's_ or some such piffling book; but, thought Drummond in his cold, practical way, what about the house? If Sheen thought that Seymour's was going to chuck away all chance of winning one of the inter-house events, simply in order to give him an opportunity of doing the Young Hero, the sooner he got rid of that sort of idea, the better. If he wanted to do the Leo Cholmondeley business, let him go and chuck a kid into the river, and jump in and save him. But he wasn't going to have the house let in for twenty Sheens.

Such were the meditations of Drummond when the infirmary attendant brought Sheen's letter to him; and he seized pencil and paper and wrote, "Don't be a fool". But pity succeeded contempt, and he tore up the writing. After all, however much he had deserved it, the man had had a bad time. It was no use jumping on him. And at one time they had been pals. Might as well do the thing politely.

All of which reflections would have been prevented had Sheen thought of mentioning the simple fact that it was Joe Bevan who had given him the lessons to which he referred in his letter. But he had decided not to do so, wishing to avoid long explanations. And there was, he felt, a chance that the letter might come into other hands than those of Drummond. So he had preserved silence on that point, thereby wrecking his entire scheme.

It struck him that he might go to Linton, explain his position, and ask him to withdraw in his favour, but there were difficulties in the way of that course. There is a great deal of red tape about the athletic arrangements of a house at a public school. When once an order has gone forth, it is difficult to get it repealed. Linton had been chosen to represent the house in the Light-Weights, and he would carry out orders. Only illness would prevent him appearing in the ring.

Sheen made up his mind not to try to take his place, and went through the days a victim to gloom, which was caused by other things besides his disappointment respecting the boxing competition. The Gotford examination was over now, and he was not satisfied with his performance. Though he did not know it, his dissatisfaction was due principally to the fact that, owing to his isolation, he had been unable to compare notes after the examinations with the others. Doing an examination without comparing notes subsequently with one's rivals, is like playing golf against a bogey. The imaginary rival against whom one pits oneself never makes a mistake. Our own "howlers" stand out in all their horrid nakedness; but we do not realise that our rivals have probably made others far worse. In this way Sheen plumbed the depths of depression. The Gotford was a purely Classical examination, with the exception of one paper, a General Knowledge paper; and it was in this that Sheen fancied he had failed so miserably. His Greek and Latin verse were always good; his prose, he felt, was not altogether beyond the pale; but in the General Knowledge paper he had come down heavily. As a matter of fact, if he had only known, the paper was an exceptionally hard one, and there was not a single candidate for the scholarship who felt satisfied with his treatment of it. It was to questions ten, eleven, and thirteen of this paper that Cardew, of the School House, who had entered for the scholarship for the sole reason that competitors got excused two clear days of ordinary school-work, wrote the following answer:

See "Encylopaedia Britannica," _Times_ edition.

If they really wanted to know, he said subsequently, that was the authority to go to. He himself would probably misinform them altogether.

In addition to the Gotford and the House Boxing, the House Fives now came on, and the authorities of Seymour's were in no small perplexity. They met together in Rigby's study to discuss the matter. Their difficulty was this. There was only one inmate of Seymour's who had a chance of carrying off the House Fives Cup. And that was Sheen. The house was asking itself what was to be done about it.

"You see," said Rigby, "you can look at it in two ways, whichever you like. We ought certainly to send in our best man for the pot, whatever sort of chap he is. But then, come to think of it, Sheen can't very well be said to belong to the house at all. When a man's been cut dead during the whole term, he can't be looked on as one of the house very well. See what I mean?"

"Of course he can't," said Mill, who was second in command at Seymour's. Mill's attitude towards his fellow men was one of incessant hostility. He seemed to bear a grudge against the entire race.

Rigby resumed. He was a pacific person, and hated anything resembling rows in the house. He had been sorry for Sheen, and would have been glad to give him a chance of setting himself on his legs again.

"You see," he said, "this is what I mean. We either recognise Sheen's existence or we don't. Follow? We can't get him to win this Cup for us, and then, when he has done it, go on cutting him and treating him as if he didn't belong to the house at all. I know he let the house down awfully badly in that business, but still, if he lifts the Fives Cup, that'll square the thing. If he does anything to give the house a leg-up, he must be treated as if he'd never let it down at all."

"Of course," said Barry. "I vote we send him in for the Fives."

"What rot!" said Mill. "It isn't as if none of the rest of us played fives."

"We aren't as good as Sheen," said Barry.

"I don't care. I call it rot letting a chap like him represent the house at anything. If he were the best fives-player in the world I wouldn't let him play for the house."

Rigby was impressed by his vehemence. He hesitated.

"After all, Barry," he said, "I don't know. Perhaps it might--you see, he did--well, I really think we'd better have somebody else. The house has got its knife into Sheen too much just at present to want him as a representative. There'd only be sickness, don't you think? Who else is there?"

So it came about that Menzies was chosen to uphold the house in the Fives Courts. Sheen was not surprised. But it was not pleasant. He was certainly having bad luck in his attempts to do something for the house. Perhaps if he won the Gotford they might show a little enthusiasm. The Gotford always caused a good deal of interest in the school. It was the best thing of its kind in existence at Wrykyn, and even the most abandoned loafers liked to feel that their house had won it. It was just possible, thought Sheen, that a brilliant win might change the feelings of Seymour's towards him. He did not care for the applause of the multitude more than a boy should, but he preferred it very decidedly to the cut direct.

Things went badly for Seymour's. Never in the history of the house, or, at any rate, in the comparatively recent history of the house, had there been such a slump in athletic trophies. To begin with, they were soundly beaten in the semi-final for the House football cup by Allardyce's lot. With Drummond away, there was none to mark the captain of the School team at half, and Allardyce had raced through in a manner that must have compensated him to a certain extent for the poor time he had had in first fifteen matches. The game had ended in a Seymourite defeat by nineteen points to five.

Nor had the Boxing left the house in a better position. Linton fought pluckily in the Light-Weights, but went down before Stanning, after beating a representative of Templar's. Mill did not show up well in the Heavy-Weights, and was defeated in his first bout. Seymour's were reduced to telling themselves how different it all would have been if Drummond had been there.

Sheen watched the Light-Weight contests, and nearly danced with irritation. He felt that he could have eaten Stanning. The man was quick with his left, but he couldn't _box_. He hadn't a notion of side-stepping, and the upper-cut appeared to be entirely outside his range. He would like to see him tackle Francis.

Sheen thought bitterly of Drummond. Why on earth couldn't he have given him a chance. It was maddening.

The Fives carried on the story. Menzies was swamped by a Day's man. He might just as well have stayed away altogether. The star of Seymour's was very low on the horizon.

And then the house scored its one success. The headmaster announced it in the Hall after prayers in his dry, unemotional way.

"I have received the list of marks," he said, "from the examiners for the Gotford Scholarship." He paused. Sheen felt a sudden calm triumph flood over him. Somehow, intuitively, he knew that he had won. He waited without excitement for the next words.

"Out of a possible thousand marks, Sheen, who wins the scholarship, obtained seven hundred and one, Stanning six hundred and four, Wilson...."

Sheen walked out of the Hall in the unique position of a Gotford winner with only one friend to congratulate him. Jack Bruce was the one. The other six hundred and thirty-three members of the school made no demonstration.

There was a pleasant custom at Seymour's of applauding at tea any Seymourite who had won distinction, and so shed a reflected glory on the house. The head of the house would observe, "Well played, So-and-So!" and the rest of the house would express their emotion in the way that seemed best to them, to the subsequent exultation of the local crockery merchant, who had generally to supply at least a dozen fresh cups and plates to the house after one of these occasions. When it was for getting his first eleven or first fifteen cap that the lucky man was being cheered, the total of breakages sometimes ran into the twenties.

Rigby, good, easy man, was a little doubtful as to what course to pursue in the circumstances. Should he give the signal? After all, the fellow _had_ won the Gotford. It was a score for the house, and they wanted all the scores they could get in these lean years. Perhaps, then, he had better.

"Well played, Sheen," said he.

There was a dead silence. A giggle from the fags' table showed that the comedy of the situation was not lost on the young mind.

The head of the house looked troubled. This was awfully awkward.

"Well played, Sheen," he said again.

"Don't mention it, Rigby," said the winner of the Gotford politely, looking up from his plate.

XVIII

MR BEVAN MAKES A SUGGESTION

When one has been working hard with a single end in view, the arrival and departure of the supreme moment is apt to leave a feeling of emptiness, as if life had been drained of all its interest, and left nothing sufficiently exciting to make it worth doing. Horatius, as he followed his plough on a warm day over the corn land which his gratified country bestowed on him for his masterly handling of the traffic on the bridge, must sometimes have felt it was a little tame. The feeling is far more acute when one has been unexpectedly baulked in one's desire for action. Sheen, for the first few days after he received Drummond's brief note, felt that it was useless for him to try to do anything. The Fates were against him. In stories, as Mr Anstey has pointed out, the hero is never long without his chance of retrieving his reputation. A mad bull comes into the school grounds, and he alone (the hero, not the bull) is calm. Or there is a fire, and whose is that pale and gesticulating form at the upper window? The bully's, of course. And who is that climbing nimbly up the Virginia creeper? Why, the hero. Who else? Three hearty cheers for the plucky hero.

But in real life opportunities of distinguishing oneself are less frequent.

Sheen continued his visits to the "Blue Boar", but more because he shrank from telling Joe Bevan that all his trouble had been for nothing, than because he had any definite object in view. It was bitter to listen to the eulogies of the pugilist, when all the while he knew that, as far as any immediate results were concerned, it did not really matter whether he boxed well or feebly. Some day, perhaps, as Mr Bevan was fond of pointing out when he approached the subject of disadvantages of boxing, he might meet a hooligan when he was crossing a field with his sister; but he found that but small consolation. He was in the position of one who wants a small sum of ready money, and is told that, in a few years, he may come into a fortune. By the time he got a chance of proving himself a man with his hands, he would be an Old Wrykinian. He was leaving at the end of the summer term.

Jack Bruce was sympathetic, and talked more freely than was his wont.

"I can't understand it," he said. "Drummond always seemed a good sort. I should have thought he would have sent you in for the house like a shot. Are you sure you put it plainly in your letter? What did you say?"

Sheen repeated the main points of his letter.

"Did you tell him who had been teaching you?"

"No. I just said I'd been boxing lately."

"Pity," said Jack Bruce. "If you'd mentioned that it was Joe who'd been training you, he would probably have been much more for it. You see, he couldn't know whether you were any good or not from your letter. But if you'd told him that Joe Bevan and Hunt both thought you good, he'd have seen there was something in it."

"It never occurred to me. Like a fool, I was counting on the thing so much that it didn't strike me there would be any real difficulty in getting him to see my point. Especially when he got mumps and couldn't go in himself. Well, it can't be helped now."

And the conversation turned to the prospects of Jack Bruce's father in the forthcoming election, the polling for which had just begun.

"I'm busy now," said Bruce. "I'm not sure that I shall be able to do much sparring with you for a bit."

"My dear chap, don't let me--"

"Oh, it's all right, really. Taking you to the 'Blue Boar' doesn't land me out of my way at all. Most of the work lies round in this direction. I call at cottages, and lug oldest inhabitants to the poll. It's rare sport."

"Does your pater know?"

"Oh, yes. He rots me about it like anything, but, all the same, I believe he's really rather bucked because I've roped in quite a dozen voters who wouldn't have stirred a yard if I hadn't turned up. That's where we're scoring. Pedder hasn't got a car yet, and these old rotters round here aren't going to move out of their chairs to go for a ride in an ordinary cart. But they chuck away their crutches and hop into a motor like one o'clock."

"It must be rather a rag," said Sheen.

The car drew up at the door of the "Blue Boar". Sheen got out and ran upstairs to the gymnasium. Joe Bevan was sparring a round with Francis. He watched them while he changed, but without the enthusiasm of which he had been conscious on previous occasions. The solid cleverness of Joe Bevan, and the quickness and cunning of the bantam-weight, were as much in evidence as before, but somehow the glamour and romance which had surrounded them were gone. He no longer watched eagerly to pick up the slightest hint from these experts. He felt no more interest than he would have felt in watching a game of lawn tennis. He _had_ been keen. Since his disappointment with regard to the House Boxing he had become indifferent.

Joe Bevan noticed this before he had been boxing with him a minute.

"Hullo, sir," he said, "what's this? Tired today? Not feeling well? You aren't boxing like yourself, not at all you aren't. There's no weight behind 'em. You're tapping. What's the matter with your feet, too? You aren't getting about as quickly as I should like to see. What have you been doing to yourself?"

"Nothing that I know of," said Sheen. "I'm sorry I'm so rotten. Let's have another try."

The second try proved as unsatisfactory as the first. He was listless, and his leads and counters lacked conviction.

Joe Bevan, who identified himself with his pupils with that thoroughness which is the hall-mark of the first-class boxing instructor, looked so pained at his sudden loss of form, that Sheen could not resist the temptation to confide in him. After all, he must tell him some time.

"The fact is," he said, as they sat on the balcony overlooking the river, waiting for Jack Bruce to return with his car, "I've had a bit of a sickener."

"I thought you'd got sick of it," said Mr Bevan. "Well, have a bit of a rest."

"I don't mean that I'm tired of boxing," Sheen hastened to explain. "After all the trouble you've taken with me, it would be a bit thick if I chucked it just as I was beginning to get on. It isn't that. But you know how keen I was on boxing for the house?"

Joe Bevan nodded.

"Did you get beat?"

"They wouldn't let me go in," said Sheen.

"But, bless me! you'd have made babies of them. What was the instructor doing? Couldn't he see that you were good?"

"I didn't get a chance of showing what I could do." He explained the difficulties of the situation.

Mr Bevan nodded his head thoughtfully.

"So naturally," concluded Sheen, "the thing has put me out a bit. It's beastly having nothing to work for. I'm at a loose end. Up till now, I've always had the thought of the House Competition to keep me going. But now--well, you see how it is. It's like running to catch a train, and then finding suddenly that you've got plenty of time. There doesn't seem any point in going on running."

"Why not Aldershot, sir? said Mr Bevan.

"What!" cried Sheen.

The absolute novelty of the idea, and the gorgeous possibilities of it, made him tingle from head to foot. Aldershot! Why hadn't he thought of it before! The House Competition suddenly lost its importance in his eyes. It was a trivial affair, after all, compared with Aldershot, that Mecca of the public-school boxer.

Then the glow began to fade. Doubts crept in. He might have learned a good deal from Joe Bevan, but had he learned enough to be able to hold his own with the best boxers of all the public schools in the country? And if he had the skill to win, had he the heart? Joe Bevan had said that he would not disgrace himself again, and he felt that the chances were against his doing so, but there was the terrible possibility. He had stood up to Francis and the others, and he had taken their blows without flinching; but in these encounters there was always at the back of his mind the comforting feeling that there was a limit to the amount of punishment he would receive. If Francis happened to drive him into a corner where he could neither attack, nor defend himself against attack, he did not use his advantage to the full. He indicated rather than used it. A couple of blows, and he moved out into the open again. But in the Public Schools Competition at Aldershot there would be no quarter. There would be nothing but deadly earnest. If he allowed himself to be manoeuvred into an awkward position, only his own skill, or the call of time, could extricate him from it.

In a word, at the "Blue Boar" he sparred. At Aldershot he would have to fight. Was he capable of fighting?

Then there was another difficulty. How was he to get himself appointed as the Wrykyn light-weight representative? Now that Drummond was unable to box, Stanning would go down, as the winner of the School Competition. These things were worked by an automatic process. Sheen felt that he could beat Stanning, but he had no means of publishing this fact to the school. He could not challenge him to a trial of skill. That sort of thing was not done.

He explained this to Joe Bevan.

"Well, it's a pity," said Joe regretfully. "It's a pity."

At this moment Jack Bruce appeared.

"What's a pity, Joe?" he asked.

"Joe wants me to go to Aldershot as a light-weight," explained Sheen, "and I was just saying that I couldn't, because of Stanning."

"What about Stanning?"

"He won the School Competition, you see, so they're bound to send him down."

"Half a minute," said Jack Bruce. "I never thought of Aldershot for you before. It's a jolly good idea. I believe you'd have a chance. And it's all right about Stanning. He's not going down. Haven't you heard?"

"I don't hear anything. Why isn't he going down?"

"He's knocked up one of his wrists. So he says."

"How do you mean--so he says?" asked Sheen.

"I believe he funks it."

"Why? What makes you think that?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's only my opinion. Still, it's a little queer. Stanning says he crocked his left wrist in the final of the House Competition."

"Well, what's wrong with that? Why shouldn't he have done so?"

Sheen objected strongly to Stanning, but he had the elements of justice in him, and he was not going to condemn him on insufficient evidence, particularly of a crime of which he himself had been guilty.

"Of course he may have done," said Bruce. "But it's a bit fishy that he should have been playing fives all right two days running just after the competition."

"He might have crocked himself then."

"Then why didn't he say so?"

A question which Sheen found himself unable to answer.

"Then there's nothing to prevent you fighting, sir," said Joe Bevan, who had been listening attentively to the conversation.

"Do you really think I've got a chance?"

"I do, sir."

"Of course you have," said Jack Bruce. "You're quite as good as Drummond was, last time I saw him box."

"Then I'll have a shot at it," said Sheen.

"Good for you, sir," cried Joe Bevan.

"Though it'll be a bit of a job getting leave," said Sheen. "How would you start about it, Bruce?"

"You'd better ask Spence. He's the man to go to."

"That's all right. I'm rather a pal of Spence's."

"Ask him tonight after prep.," suggested Bruce.

"And then you can come here regular," said Joe Bevan, "and we'll train you till you're that fit you could eat bricks, and you'll make babies of them up at Aldershot."

XIX

PAVING THE WAY

Bruce had been perfectly correct in his suspicions. Stanning's wrist was no more sprained than his ankle. The advisability of manufacturing an injury had come home to him very vividly on the Saturday morning following the Ripton match, when he had read the brief report of that painful episode in that week's number of the _Field_ in the school library. In the list of the Ripton team appeared the name R. Peteiro. He had heard a great deal about the dusky Riptonian when Drummond had beaten him in the Feather-Weights the year before. Drummond had returned from Aldershot on that occasion cheerful, but in an extremely battered condition. His appearance as he limped about the field on Sports Day had been heroic, and, in addition, a fine advertisement for the punishing powers of the Ripton champion. It is true that at least one of his injuries had been the work of a Pauline whom he had met in the opening bout; but the great majority were presents from Ripton, and Drummond had described the dusky one, in no uncertain terms, as a holy terror.

These things had sunk into Stanning's mind. It had been generally understood at Wrykyn that Peteiro had left school at Christmas. When Stanning, through his study of the _Field_, discovered that the redoubtable boxer had been one of the team against which he had played at Ripton, and realised that, owing to Drummond's illness, it would fall to him, if he won the House Competition, to meet this man of wrath at Aldershot, he resolved on the instant that the most persuasive of wild horses should not draw him to that military centre on the day of the Public Schools Competition. The difficulty was that he particularly wished to win the House Cup. Then it occurred to him that he could combine the two things--win the competition and get injured while doing so.

Accordingly, two days after the House Boxing he was observed to issue from Appleby's with his left arm slung in a first fifteen scarf. He was too astute to injure his right wrist. What happens to one's left wrist at school is one's own private business. When one injures one's right arm, and so incapacitates oneself for form work, the authorities begin to make awkward investigations.

Mr Spence, who looked after the school's efforts to win medals at Aldershot, was the most disappointed person in the place. He was an enthusiastic boxer--he had represented Cambridge in the Middle-Weights in his day--and with no small trouble had succeeded in making boxing a going concern at Wrykyn. Years of failure had ended, the Easter before, in a huge triumph, when O'Hara, of Dexter's and Drummond had won silver medals, and Moriarty, of Dexter's, a bronze. If only somebody could win a medal this year, the tradition would be established, and would not soon die out. Unfortunately, there was not a great deal of boxing talent in the school just now. The rule that the winner at his weight in the House Competitions should represent the school at Aldershot only applied if the winner were fairly proficient. Mr Spence exercised his discretion. It was no use sending down novices to be massacred. This year Drummond and Stanning were the only Wrykinians up to Aldershot form. Drummond would have been almost a certainty for a silver medal, and Stanning would probably have been a runner-up. And here they were, both injured; Wrykyn would not have a single representative at the Queen's Avenue Gymnasium. It would be a set-back to the cult of boxing at the school.

Mr Spence was pondering over this unfortunate state of things when Sheen was shown in.

"Can I speak to you for a minute, sir?" said Sheen.

"Certainly, Sheen. Take one of those cig--I mean, sit down. What is it?"

Sheen had decided how to open the interview before knocking at the door. He came to the point at once.

"Do you think I could go down to Aldershot, sir?" he asked.

Mr Spence looked surprised.

"Go down? You mean--? Do you want to watch the competition? Really, I don't know if the headmaster--"

"I mean, can I box?"

Mr Spence's look of surprise became more marked.

"Box?" he said. "But surely--I didn't know you were a boxer, Sheen."

"I've only taken it up lately."

"But you didn't enter for the House Competitions, did you? What weight are you?"

"Just under ten stone."

"A light-weight. Why, Linton boxed for your house in the Light-Weights surely?"

"Yes sir. They wouldn't let me go in."

"You hurt yourself?"

"No, sir."

"Then why wouldn't they let you go in?"

"Drummond thought Linton was better. He didn't know I boxed."

"But--this is very curious. I don't understand it at all. You see, if you were not up to House form, you would hardly--At Aldershot, you see, you would meet the best boxers of all the public schools."

"Yes, sir."

There was a pause.

"It was like this, sir," said Sheen nervously. "At the beginning of the term there was a bit of a row down in the town, and I got mixed up in it. And I didn't--I was afraid to join in. I funked it."

Mr Spence nodded. He was deeply interested now. The office of confessor is always interesting.

"Go on, Sheen. What happened then?"

"I was cut by everybody. The fellows thought I had let the house down, and it got about, and the other houses scored off them, so I had rather a rotten time."

Here it occurred to him that he was telling his story without that attention to polite phraseology which a master expects from a boy, so he amended the last sentence.

"I didn't have a very pleasant time, sir," was his correction.

"Well?" said Mr Spence.

"So I was a bit sick," continued Sheen, relapsing once more into the vernacular, "and I wanted to do something to put things right again, and I met--anyhow, I took up boxing. I wanted to box for the house, if I was good enough. I practised every day, and stuck to it, and after a bit I did become pretty good."

"Well?"

"Then Drummond got mumps, and I wrote to him asking if I might represent the house instead of him, and I suppose he didn't believe I was any good. At any rate, he wouldn't let me go in. Then Joe--a man who knows something about boxing--suggested I should go down to Aldershot."

"Joe?" said Mr Spence inquiringly.

Sheen had let the name slip out unintentionally, but it was too late now to recall it.

"Joe Bevan, sir," he said. "He used to be champion of England, light-weight."

"Joe Bevan!" cried Mr Spence. "Really? Why, he trained me when I boxed for Cambridge. He's one of the best of fellows. I've never seen any one who took such trouble with his man. I wish we could get him here. So it was Joe who suggested that you should go down to Aldershot? Well, he ought to know. Did he say you would have a good chance?"

"Yes, sir."

"My position is this, you see, Sheen. There is nothing I should like more than to see the school represented at Aldershot. But I cannot let anyone go down, irrespective of his abilities. Aldershot is not child's play. And in the Light-Weights you get the hardest fighting of all. It wouldn't do for me to let you go down if you are not up to the proper form. You would be half killed."

"I should like to have a shot, sir," said Sheen.

"Then this year, as you probably know, Ripton are sending down Peteiro for the Light-Weights. He was the fellow whom Drummond only just beat last year. And you saw the state in which Drummond came back. If Drummond could hardly hold him, what would you do?"

"I believe I could beat Drummond, sir," said Sheen.

Mr Spence's eyes opened wider. Here were brave words. This youth evidently meant business. The thing puzzled him. On the one hand, Sheen had been cut by his house for cowardice. On the other, Joe Bevan, who of all men was best able to judge, had told him that he was good enough to box at Aldershot.

"Let me think it over, Sheen," he said. "This is a matter which I cannot decide in a moment. I will tell you tomorrow what I think about it."

"I hope you will let me go down, sir," said Sheen. "It's my one chance."

"Yes, yes, I see that, I see that," said Mr Spence, "but all the same--well, I will think it over."