Chapter Twenty One.We boys used to think the days at old Browne’s very long and tedious, and often enough feel a mortal hatred of Euclid as a tyrant who had invented geometry for the sake of driving boys mad. What distaste, too, we had for all the old Romans who had bequeathed their language to us; just as if English wasn’t ten times better, Mercer used to say.“Bother their old declensions and conjugations!” he would cry. “What’s the good of them all? I call it a stupid language to have no proper prepositions and articles and the rest of it: tucking i’s, a’s, and e’s at the end of words instead.”But what days they were after all—days that never more return! The Doctor was pretty stern at times, and gave us little rest. Mr Rebble seemed to be always lying in wait to puzzle us with questions, and Mr Hasnip appeared to think that we never had enough to learn; while the German and French masters, who came over twice a week from Hastings, both seemed to have been born with the idea that there was nothing of the slightest consequence in the way of our studies but the tongues they taught. And oh, the scoldings we received for what they called our neglect and stupidity!“Ach, dumkopf!” the German master would cry wrathfully; while the French master had a way of screwing up his eyes, wrinkling his face, and grinding his teeth at our pronunciation.I’m afraid we hated them all, in complete ignorance of the other side of the case, and the constant unwearying application they gave to a set of reckless young rascals, who construed Latin with their lips and the game that was to be played that afternoon with their brains.I confess it. I must have been very stupid in some things, sharp as I was in others, and I have often thought since that Mr Rebble’s irritability was due to the constant trouble we gave him; that Mr Hasnip was at heart a thorough gentleman; and as for “Old Browne,” as we called him, he was a ripe scholar and a genuine loveable old Englishman, with the health and welfare of his boys thoroughly at heart.We thought nothing of it. A boy’s nature does not grasp all these things. To us it was a matter of course that, if we were ill, Mrs Doctor should have us shut up in another part of the house, and, with her two daughters, risk infection, and nurse us back to health. I could not see then, but I can now, what patient devotion was given to us. Of course I could not see it, for I was a happy, thoughtless boy, living my golden days, when to breathe and move was a genuine pleasure, and the clouds and troubles that shut off a bit of life’s sunshine only made the light the brighter when it came again!Ah! it’s a grand thing to be a boy, with all your life before you, and if any young sceptic who reads these words, and does not skip them because he thinks they are prosy preaching, doubts what I say, let him wait. It is the simple truth, and I am satisfied, for I know that he will alter his tune later on.In spite, then, of the many troubles I had to go through, with the weariness of much of the learning, it was a delightful life I led, and though a little dumpy at leaving home after the holidays, I had forgotten my low spirits long before I got back to the Doctor’s, and was looking forward longingly to seeing old faces, wondering what the new ones would be like, and eager to renew my friendly relations with Tom Mercer, Lomax, Bob Hopley, and Cook, and to give them the little presents I was taking back.These were mere trifles, but they went a long way with the recipients. Tom Mercer declared that the blade of the knife I gave him was the best bit of steel he ever saw. It wasn’t: for, unless the edge was constantly renewed, there never was such a knife to cut.Lomax’s gift was more satisfactory, for my uncle got it for me with a grim smile, as he thought, I know, of his old soldiering days. It was a quarter of a pound of very choice Virginia tobacco, and it delighted the old sergeant so, that I thought he would have hugged me. I don’t know how long that lasted, but I am sure he hoarded some of it up for nearly a year, and he would call my attention to its “glorious scent,” as he called it, though to me it was very nasty indeed.Bob Hopley’s present was a red and orange silk kerchief, which he wore proudly on Sundays, and Cook’s was in a small box prepared by my mother—a cap with wonderful flowers and ribbons, which obtained for Tom Mercer and me endless little supper snacks as tokens of the woman’s delight and gratitude.So, as time sped on, I had grown so accustomed to the life at “Old Browne’s,” that I felt little objection, as I have said, to returning after the Christmas holidays; though the weather was bad and there was a long while to wait before there could be much pleasure in out-door sports. But the spring came at last with its pear and apple blossom, the hops began to run up the poles, May and June succeeded, and glided on so that I could hardly believe it when the midsummer holidays came without my feeling that I had advanced much in the past six months.I suppose I had, for I had worked hard, and the letter I bore home from the Doctor quite satisfied my mother who afterwards informed me in confidence that my uncle was greatly pleased.Six weeks’ holidays were before me, but, before they were at an end, I was beginning to get weary, and longing for the day to come when my new things were brought home ready to try on, pack up, and return to school.To my studies and interviews with the masters?Oh, no! nothing of the kind; but to where there were woods and ponds, and the General’s cob for my riding lessons, and the cricket-field.I’m afraid my mother must have thought me careless and unloving. I hope I was not, in my eagerness to get back to Tom Mercer, who made my school life most interesting by his quaintness. For I was always ready to enter into his projects, some of which were as amusing as they were new.I had seen little of my uncle when I was home last, but he wrote to me twice—stern, military-toned letters, each of which was quite a despatch in itself. In these he laid down the law to me, giving me the best of advice, but it was all very Spartan-like. He insisted above all things upon my recollecting that I was to be a soldier, and that a soldier was always a gentleman and a man of honour, and each time he finished his letter in these words,—“Never tell a lie, Frank; never do a dirty action; keep yourself smart and clean; and, by the way, I send you a sovereign to spend in trash.”“Only wish I had such an uncle,” Tom Mercer used to say. “My father would send me money if he could spare it, but he says his patients won’t pay. They’re civil enough when they’re ill, but when he has wound up their clocks, and set them going again, they’re as disagreeable as can be if he wants his bill.”This was after I had gone back from the midsummer holidays.“Did you ask him for money, then?”“Yes, and he said that if he wrote at midsummer and asked for payment, the farmers told him they’d pay after harvest, and if he wanted it after harvest, they said they’d pay at. Christmas, and when Christmas came, they told him to wait till midsummer. Oh, won’t I serve ’em out if ever I’m a doctor!”“What would you do?” I said.“Give ’em such a dose!”“Not you, Tom.”“Oh, won’t I! I don’t care, though; father gave me a crown and mamma half a one.”“And enough too. What a fellow you are to grumble!”“That I’m not. I wanted ’em to buy me a watch.”“Get out! What a fellow you are! Next time the chaps want a nickname for you, I shall call you Watchman.”“All right! I don’t mind; but I shan’t be happy till I have a watch.”“That’s what you used to say about Magglin’s take-to-pieces gun, but you never got it, and you’ve been happy enough without.”“Oh, have I?” said Mercer. “You don’t know. I used to long for that gun.”Two or three days afterwards, in one of our strolls, when we were both coming back laden with odds and ends for the museum up in the loft, Mercer proposed that we should cross a field and get into the lower lane, so as to call at Polly Hopley’s to get something to eat.I was nothing loth, and we struck off across country, got into the lane about a couple of hundred yards from the keeper’s lodge, and then suddenly stopped short.“Hush!” I said, as shouts and cries reached our ears.“There’s something the matter,” cried Mercer. “Come on.”We set off at a run, and as we passed a bend in the lane, we came full in sight of the keeper’s cottage, and saw him in the middle of the road, holding a rough-looking figure by the collar, keeping it down upon its knees, while he vigorously used a stick upon the object’s back, in spite of cries and protestations, till there was a sudden wrench, and whoever it was dragged himself away and ran down the lane, Polly Hopley standing at the cottage door laughing, while her father wiped his brow with the sleeve of his coat.“Hullo, young gents!” he cried. “You were just too late to see the fun.”“Saw some of it, Bob,” I said. “But who was it?”“Didn’t you see, sir?”“I did,” cried Mercer. “It was old Magglin.”“Yes, and I’ll Magglin him!” cried Bob wrathfully.“What’s he been doing?” I said. “Poaching?”“Eh? Yes, sir, poaching, that’s what he’s been up to,” said Bob, with a side glance at Polly, who threw her apron over her face, burst out laughing, and ran into the cottage. “He’ve been told over and over again to keep away, but it’s no good, so I’ve started this here hazel saplin’ for him and I’ve been beating his carpet for him nicely. I don’t think he’ll come any more.”“What does he come poaching after, Bob—the sweets?” said Mercer.“Um! Yes, the sweets,” said Bob drily; “and he ain’t going to have ’em. A lazy, poaching, dishonest scoundrel, that’s what he is. I did think we’d got rid of him lots o’ times, but he’s like a bad shilling, he always comes back. Well, never mind him, sir. When are you coming to have a day’s fishing? Sir Orkus told me only t’other day you was to be looked after if you come.”“Oh, some day soon,” I said. “We’ve got a big cricket match coming on first.”“Ay? Well, I must come and see that, young gents. I used to be fond of bowling myself.”We shook hands with the keeper, and then went into the cottage to buy a couple of Polly’s turnovers, and found her looking very red-faced and shy, but she was businesslike enough over taking the money, and we went off browsing down the lane upon Polly’s pastry and blackberry jam.“Magg wants to marry Polly,” I said oracularly. “Don’t you remember that day when we went round by the back, and heard her ordering him off?”“Yes, I remember,” said Mercer, with his mouth full. “I was thinking about it. I don’t wonder at Bob whacking him. Polly’s too good for such a miserable, shuffling, cheating fellow as he is. I hate him now. I used to like him, though I didn’t like him. I liked him because he was so clever at getting snakes and hedgehogs and weasels. He always knew where to find lizards. But he’s a cheat. You pay him, and then he says you didn’t, and keeps on worrying you for more money. I’ll never buy anything of him again.”“That’s what you always say, Tom,” I replied, “and next time he has a good bird or anything, you buy it.”“Well, I’ve done with him this time. Look: there he is.”For about fifty yards away there was Magglin, long-haired and dirty-looking, seated on the bank, with his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands.But he was so quick of ear, that, though we were walking along the grassy margin of the road, he heard us coming, and started up fierce and excited of aspect, but only to soften down and touch his cap, with a servile grin upon his face.“Hullo, Mr Mercer, sir,” he whined; “looking for me?”“No,” said my companion. “Why should I look for you?”“Thought you wanted to pay me that shilling you owe me, sir.”“I don’t owe you a shilling.”“Oh yes, you do, sir. Don’t he, Mr Burr junior?”“No,” I said; “and if you ever have the impudence to say so again, I’ll tell Bob Hopley to give you another thrashing.”The gipsy-looking fellow’s dark eyes flashed.“He’d better touch me again,” he cried fiercely. “He’d better touch me again. Did you two see?”“Yes, we saw,” said Mercer. “I say, he did make you cry chy-ike.”“He’d better touch me again.”“He will,” I said, “if you go hanging about after Polly Hopley.”“What, did he tell you that?”“No,” I said, “we knew well enough. Bob Hopley didn’t say a word. Only called it poaching.”Magglin’s manner changed directly, and in a snivelling, whining way he began,—“Well, I can’t help it, young gen’lemen. I’m ’bliged to go there, and nothing I can do’s good enough for her. If I give her anything, she chucks it at me, because it aren’t good enough.”“I should think not, indeed,” said Mercer. “What decent girl’s going to listen to such a ragged scaramouche as you are?”“Well, I can’t help it, young gen’lemen.”“Yes, you can. Go to work like a man, and grow respectable,” I said. “I should be ashamed to idle about as you do.”“Why, aren’t you two always idling about?”“No. We do our work first,” I said.“I say, Magg, here comes Bob Hopley!” cried Mercer mischievously.The poacher gave a quick glance up the lane in the direction from which we had come, caught sight of the keeper’s velveteen coat, and shot into the copse and was gone.“I don’t wonder at Bob thrashing him,” I said.“No,” replied Mercer, as we went on. “I shall never deal with him again. If I want a bird or anything, I shall ask Bob Hopley. He’s a man, he is. If you give him anything, he says, ‘Thank-ye,’ and if you don’t, he never seems to mind. He knows boys haven’t always got any money. I wish Magglin would go right away.”The conversation turned then upon the coming cricket match; after which we dropped in upon Lomax, and talked to him about boxing, and I pleased him very much by telling him how satisfied my uncle had been at the way I had learned to ride a horse; when, with his eyes twinkling, the old soldier took a letter from his chimney-piece, and opened it to show me my uncle’s words, thanking him for the way he, an old soldier, had trained the son of a soldier, and enclosing a five-pound note.“For a rainy day, Master Burr,” he said. “I’ve clapped that in the bank.”
We boys used to think the days at old Browne’s very long and tedious, and often enough feel a mortal hatred of Euclid as a tyrant who had invented geometry for the sake of driving boys mad. What distaste, too, we had for all the old Romans who had bequeathed their language to us; just as if English wasn’t ten times better, Mercer used to say.
“Bother their old declensions and conjugations!” he would cry. “What’s the good of them all? I call it a stupid language to have no proper prepositions and articles and the rest of it: tucking i’s, a’s, and e’s at the end of words instead.”
But what days they were after all—days that never more return! The Doctor was pretty stern at times, and gave us little rest. Mr Rebble seemed to be always lying in wait to puzzle us with questions, and Mr Hasnip appeared to think that we never had enough to learn; while the German and French masters, who came over twice a week from Hastings, both seemed to have been born with the idea that there was nothing of the slightest consequence in the way of our studies but the tongues they taught. And oh, the scoldings we received for what they called our neglect and stupidity!
“Ach, dumkopf!” the German master would cry wrathfully; while the French master had a way of screwing up his eyes, wrinkling his face, and grinding his teeth at our pronunciation.
I’m afraid we hated them all, in complete ignorance of the other side of the case, and the constant unwearying application they gave to a set of reckless young rascals, who construed Latin with their lips and the game that was to be played that afternoon with their brains.
I confess it. I must have been very stupid in some things, sharp as I was in others, and I have often thought since that Mr Rebble’s irritability was due to the constant trouble we gave him; that Mr Hasnip was at heart a thorough gentleman; and as for “Old Browne,” as we called him, he was a ripe scholar and a genuine loveable old Englishman, with the health and welfare of his boys thoroughly at heart.
We thought nothing of it. A boy’s nature does not grasp all these things. To us it was a matter of course that, if we were ill, Mrs Doctor should have us shut up in another part of the house, and, with her two daughters, risk infection, and nurse us back to health. I could not see then, but I can now, what patient devotion was given to us. Of course I could not see it, for I was a happy, thoughtless boy, living my golden days, when to breathe and move was a genuine pleasure, and the clouds and troubles that shut off a bit of life’s sunshine only made the light the brighter when it came again!
Ah! it’s a grand thing to be a boy, with all your life before you, and if any young sceptic who reads these words, and does not skip them because he thinks they are prosy preaching, doubts what I say, let him wait. It is the simple truth, and I am satisfied, for I know that he will alter his tune later on.
In spite, then, of the many troubles I had to go through, with the weariness of much of the learning, it was a delightful life I led, and though a little dumpy at leaving home after the holidays, I had forgotten my low spirits long before I got back to the Doctor’s, and was looking forward longingly to seeing old faces, wondering what the new ones would be like, and eager to renew my friendly relations with Tom Mercer, Lomax, Bob Hopley, and Cook, and to give them the little presents I was taking back.
These were mere trifles, but they went a long way with the recipients. Tom Mercer declared that the blade of the knife I gave him was the best bit of steel he ever saw. It wasn’t: for, unless the edge was constantly renewed, there never was such a knife to cut.
Lomax’s gift was more satisfactory, for my uncle got it for me with a grim smile, as he thought, I know, of his old soldiering days. It was a quarter of a pound of very choice Virginia tobacco, and it delighted the old sergeant so, that I thought he would have hugged me. I don’t know how long that lasted, but I am sure he hoarded some of it up for nearly a year, and he would call my attention to its “glorious scent,” as he called it, though to me it was very nasty indeed.
Bob Hopley’s present was a red and orange silk kerchief, which he wore proudly on Sundays, and Cook’s was in a small box prepared by my mother—a cap with wonderful flowers and ribbons, which obtained for Tom Mercer and me endless little supper snacks as tokens of the woman’s delight and gratitude.
So, as time sped on, I had grown so accustomed to the life at “Old Browne’s,” that I felt little objection, as I have said, to returning after the Christmas holidays; though the weather was bad and there was a long while to wait before there could be much pleasure in out-door sports. But the spring came at last with its pear and apple blossom, the hops began to run up the poles, May and June succeeded, and glided on so that I could hardly believe it when the midsummer holidays came without my feeling that I had advanced much in the past six months.
I suppose I had, for I had worked hard, and the letter I bore home from the Doctor quite satisfied my mother who afterwards informed me in confidence that my uncle was greatly pleased.
Six weeks’ holidays were before me, but, before they were at an end, I was beginning to get weary, and longing for the day to come when my new things were brought home ready to try on, pack up, and return to school.
To my studies and interviews with the masters?
Oh, no! nothing of the kind; but to where there were woods and ponds, and the General’s cob for my riding lessons, and the cricket-field.
I’m afraid my mother must have thought me careless and unloving. I hope I was not, in my eagerness to get back to Tom Mercer, who made my school life most interesting by his quaintness. For I was always ready to enter into his projects, some of which were as amusing as they were new.
I had seen little of my uncle when I was home last, but he wrote to me twice—stern, military-toned letters, each of which was quite a despatch in itself. In these he laid down the law to me, giving me the best of advice, but it was all very Spartan-like. He insisted above all things upon my recollecting that I was to be a soldier, and that a soldier was always a gentleman and a man of honour, and each time he finished his letter in these words,—
“Never tell a lie, Frank; never do a dirty action; keep yourself smart and clean; and, by the way, I send you a sovereign to spend in trash.”
“Only wish I had such an uncle,” Tom Mercer used to say. “My father would send me money if he could spare it, but he says his patients won’t pay. They’re civil enough when they’re ill, but when he has wound up their clocks, and set them going again, they’re as disagreeable as can be if he wants his bill.”
This was after I had gone back from the midsummer holidays.
“Did you ask him for money, then?”
“Yes, and he said that if he wrote at midsummer and asked for payment, the farmers told him they’d pay after harvest, and if he wanted it after harvest, they said they’d pay at. Christmas, and when Christmas came, they told him to wait till midsummer. Oh, won’t I serve ’em out if ever I’m a doctor!”
“What would you do?” I said.
“Give ’em such a dose!”
“Not you, Tom.”
“Oh, won’t I! I don’t care, though; father gave me a crown and mamma half a one.”
“And enough too. What a fellow you are to grumble!”
“That I’m not. I wanted ’em to buy me a watch.”
“Get out! What a fellow you are! Next time the chaps want a nickname for you, I shall call you Watchman.”
“All right! I don’t mind; but I shan’t be happy till I have a watch.”
“That’s what you used to say about Magglin’s take-to-pieces gun, but you never got it, and you’ve been happy enough without.”
“Oh, have I?” said Mercer. “You don’t know. I used to long for that gun.”
Two or three days afterwards, in one of our strolls, when we were both coming back laden with odds and ends for the museum up in the loft, Mercer proposed that we should cross a field and get into the lower lane, so as to call at Polly Hopley’s to get something to eat.
I was nothing loth, and we struck off across country, got into the lane about a couple of hundred yards from the keeper’s lodge, and then suddenly stopped short.
“Hush!” I said, as shouts and cries reached our ears.
“There’s something the matter,” cried Mercer. “Come on.”
We set off at a run, and as we passed a bend in the lane, we came full in sight of the keeper’s cottage, and saw him in the middle of the road, holding a rough-looking figure by the collar, keeping it down upon its knees, while he vigorously used a stick upon the object’s back, in spite of cries and protestations, till there was a sudden wrench, and whoever it was dragged himself away and ran down the lane, Polly Hopley standing at the cottage door laughing, while her father wiped his brow with the sleeve of his coat.
“Hullo, young gents!” he cried. “You were just too late to see the fun.”
“Saw some of it, Bob,” I said. “But who was it?”
“Didn’t you see, sir?”
“I did,” cried Mercer. “It was old Magglin.”
“Yes, and I’ll Magglin him!” cried Bob wrathfully.
“What’s he been doing?” I said. “Poaching?”
“Eh? Yes, sir, poaching, that’s what he’s been up to,” said Bob, with a side glance at Polly, who threw her apron over her face, burst out laughing, and ran into the cottage. “He’ve been told over and over again to keep away, but it’s no good, so I’ve started this here hazel saplin’ for him and I’ve been beating his carpet for him nicely. I don’t think he’ll come any more.”
“What does he come poaching after, Bob—the sweets?” said Mercer.
“Um! Yes, the sweets,” said Bob drily; “and he ain’t going to have ’em. A lazy, poaching, dishonest scoundrel, that’s what he is. I did think we’d got rid of him lots o’ times, but he’s like a bad shilling, he always comes back. Well, never mind him, sir. When are you coming to have a day’s fishing? Sir Orkus told me only t’other day you was to be looked after if you come.”
“Oh, some day soon,” I said. “We’ve got a big cricket match coming on first.”
“Ay? Well, I must come and see that, young gents. I used to be fond of bowling myself.”
We shook hands with the keeper, and then went into the cottage to buy a couple of Polly’s turnovers, and found her looking very red-faced and shy, but she was businesslike enough over taking the money, and we went off browsing down the lane upon Polly’s pastry and blackberry jam.
“Magg wants to marry Polly,” I said oracularly. “Don’t you remember that day when we went round by the back, and heard her ordering him off?”
“Yes, I remember,” said Mercer, with his mouth full. “I was thinking about it. I don’t wonder at Bob whacking him. Polly’s too good for such a miserable, shuffling, cheating fellow as he is. I hate him now. I used to like him, though I didn’t like him. I liked him because he was so clever at getting snakes and hedgehogs and weasels. He always knew where to find lizards. But he’s a cheat. You pay him, and then he says you didn’t, and keeps on worrying you for more money. I’ll never buy anything of him again.”
“That’s what you always say, Tom,” I replied, “and next time he has a good bird or anything, you buy it.”
“Well, I’ve done with him this time. Look: there he is.”
For about fifty yards away there was Magglin, long-haired and dirty-looking, seated on the bank, with his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands.
But he was so quick of ear, that, though we were walking along the grassy margin of the road, he heard us coming, and started up fierce and excited of aspect, but only to soften down and touch his cap, with a servile grin upon his face.
“Hullo, Mr Mercer, sir,” he whined; “looking for me?”
“No,” said my companion. “Why should I look for you?”
“Thought you wanted to pay me that shilling you owe me, sir.”
“I don’t owe you a shilling.”
“Oh yes, you do, sir. Don’t he, Mr Burr junior?”
“No,” I said; “and if you ever have the impudence to say so again, I’ll tell Bob Hopley to give you another thrashing.”
The gipsy-looking fellow’s dark eyes flashed.
“He’d better touch me again,” he cried fiercely. “He’d better touch me again. Did you two see?”
“Yes, we saw,” said Mercer. “I say, he did make you cry chy-ike.”
“He’d better touch me again.”
“He will,” I said, “if you go hanging about after Polly Hopley.”
“What, did he tell you that?”
“No,” I said, “we knew well enough. Bob Hopley didn’t say a word. Only called it poaching.”
Magglin’s manner changed directly, and in a snivelling, whining way he began,—
“Well, I can’t help it, young gen’lemen. I’m ’bliged to go there, and nothing I can do’s good enough for her. If I give her anything, she chucks it at me, because it aren’t good enough.”
“I should think not, indeed,” said Mercer. “What decent girl’s going to listen to such a ragged scaramouche as you are?”
“Well, I can’t help it, young gen’lemen.”
“Yes, you can. Go to work like a man, and grow respectable,” I said. “I should be ashamed to idle about as you do.”
“Why, aren’t you two always idling about?”
“No. We do our work first,” I said.
“I say, Magg, here comes Bob Hopley!” cried Mercer mischievously.
The poacher gave a quick glance up the lane in the direction from which we had come, caught sight of the keeper’s velveteen coat, and shot into the copse and was gone.
“I don’t wonder at Bob thrashing him,” I said.
“No,” replied Mercer, as we went on. “I shall never deal with him again. If I want a bird or anything, I shall ask Bob Hopley. He’s a man, he is. If you give him anything, he says, ‘Thank-ye,’ and if you don’t, he never seems to mind. He knows boys haven’t always got any money. I wish Magglin would go right away.”
The conversation turned then upon the coming cricket match; after which we dropped in upon Lomax, and talked to him about boxing, and I pleased him very much by telling him how satisfied my uncle had been at the way I had learned to ride a horse; when, with his eyes twinkling, the old soldier took a letter from his chimney-piece, and opened it to show me my uncle’s words, thanking him for the way he, an old soldier, had trained the son of a soldier, and enclosing a five-pound note.
“For a rainy day, Master Burr,” he said. “I’ve clapped that in the bank.”
Chapter Twenty Two.If there was any one thing I dearly loved, it was a good game—a regular well-fought struggle—at cricket. Oddly enough, I used to like to be on the losing side, with the eleven who were so far behind that their fight was becoming desperate, and every effort had to be made to steal a run here and another there, slowly building up the score, with the excitement gradually increasing, and the weaker side growing stronger and more hopeful hour by hour, till, perhaps, by the clever batting of one boy, who has got well to work, and who, full of confidence, sets at defiance the best efforts in every change of bowler, the score is lifted right up to the winning-point, and he comes back to the tent with the bat over his shoulder, amidst the cheers of all the lookers-on.I suppose I got on well with my education at Doctor Browne’s. I know I got on well at cricket, for whenever a match was made up for some holiday, I was in so much request that both sides were eager to have me.The Doctor had promised us a holiday to play the boys of a school at Hastings. They were to come over on an omnibus, and a tent was to be set up in our field, where, after the game, a high tea was to be provided for the visitors before they returned to Hastings in the evening.I need hardly say that the day was looked forward to with the greatest eagerness, and that plans were made to give our visitors a thorough good thrashing.Burr major, as captain of the eleven, rather unwillingly, I’m afraid, but for the sake of the credit of the school, selected Mercer and me for the match. I was to be wicket-keeper, and Mercer, from his clever and enduring running, and power to cover so much ground, was made long field off.Burr major and Stewart were to bowl, with Dicksee as a change when necessary, for he had a peculiar knack and twist in handling a ball, and could puzzle good players by sending in an innocent-looking, slowly-pitched ball, which looked as if it was going wide, and, when it had put the batsman off his guard, and induced him to change his position, so as to send the ball flying out of the field, it would suddenly curl round and go right into the wicket.All went well. We practised every evening, and again for an hour before breakfast each morning, and, as I warmed up to my task, I easily stopped all Stewart’s or Burr major’s swiftest balls, and got to know how to deal with what Mercer called “old Dicksee’s jerry sneaks.” The tent came from Hastings the day before, and was set up ready, and the next day was to be the match.But, as Burns says, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.” So it was here; our plans went very much “a-gley,” for I awoke on the morning of the match with a headache, which I knew would completely upset me for the day.I did not know then, but I know now, that it was Polly Hopley’s fault, and that her turnovers and cake were far too rich to be eaten in quantity by two boys sitting up in bed, and going to sleep directly after, in spite of the crumbs and scales of crust. I just remember that I had a bad night, full of unpleasant dreams, all connected with the cricket match in some way. Now I was being horribly beaten; now I was running after the ball, which went on and on, far away into space, and would not be overtaken, and it was still bounding away when I awoke with a start. Then I fell asleep again, and lay bound and helpless, as it seemed to me, with Burr major taking advantage of my position to come and triumph over me, which he did at first by sitting on my chest, and then springing up to go through a kind of war-dance upon me, while I stared up at him helplessly.Then Dicksee came with his face all swollen up, as it was after the fight, but he was grinning derisively at me, and while Burr major seemed to hold me down by keeping one foot pressed on my chest, Dicksee knelt by my side, and began to beat my head with a cricket bat.Bang, bang! bang, bang! Blows that fell with the regularity of the beats of a pendulum, and it seemed to me that he beat me into a state of insensibility, for both Burr major and he faded from my eyesight, though the blows of the bat were still falling upon my head when I awoke in the morning; that is to say, they seemed to be falling, and it was some minutes before I fully understood that I was suffering from a bad bilious headache.“Now then, why don’t you jump up?” said Mercer, as I lay with my eyes shut, and at this I got up slowly, began to dress, and then, feeling too giddy to stand, sat down by my bed.“What’s the matter?” cried Mercer.“So ill. Head’s so bad.”“Oh, that will be all right when you’ve had your breakfast. Mine aches too. Look sharp. It’s ever so late.”I tried to look sharp, but I’m afraid I looked very blunt, and it took me a long time to get dressed and down-stairs, and out in the fresh morning air, where I walked up and down a bit, and then suffered myself to be led into the play-field to see what a splendid tent had been raised, with its canvas back close up to the hedge which separated the Doctor’s grounds from the farm, with the intervening dry ditch, which always seemed to be full of the biggest stinging nettles I ever saw.It was a glorious morning, the turf was short and beautifully level, the boys having joined hands the previous night to drag the great roller well over it. But the sunshine, the blue sky, and the delicious green of the hedges and trees were all nothing to me then, and I let Mercer chatter on about the chances of the other side, which, as far as I was concerned, promised to be excellent.The breakfast-bell rang, and we went in, but that morning meal did not fulfil Mercer’s prophecy and carry off my ailment, for I could not touch a bit.“Oh, you are a fellow!” cried my comrade. “Well; perhaps you are right. My father says it’s best not to eat and drink when you have a bad headache. But look sharp and get well; the chaps will be over in good time.”By and by the news reached the captain of our eleven, and he came to me all smiles and civility, for all Burr major’s ideas of revenge seemed to have died out, as I thought, because I never presumed upon my victory.“Oh, I say, Burr junior,” he cried, “this won’t do! You must look sharp and get well.”“I want to,” I replied dolefully; “but I’m afraid I shan’t be able to play.”“But you must. If you don’t, they’ll be sure to beat us, and that would be horrid.”“You mustn’t let them beat you,” I said, wishing all the while that he would go, for my head throbbed more than ever, and varied it with a sensation as of hot molten lead running round inside my forehead in a way that was agonising.“But what are we to do for a wicket-keeper?”“You must take my place,” I said feebly. “You are the best wicket-keeper we have.”“No,” he cried frankly, “you are; but I think I’m the best bowler.”“Well, you will be obliged to keep wicket to-day,” I said, with a groan. “I shall never be able to stir, I’m sure.”“Well, you do look precious mouldy,” he cried. “It’s a nuisance, and no mistake. I suppose we must make shift, then?”“Yes; let Dicksee and Hodson bowl all the time.”“And I can put Senna on now and then for an over or two.”“I can’t bowl well enough,” said Mercer.“Oh yes, you can when you like,” said Burr major. “And, I say,” he cried, taking out his watch, “it’s getting close to the time.”Mercer’s eyes glistened as the watch was examined, and it seemed to me that my companion sighed as the watch was replaced.Just then Hodson came up.“How is he?”“Too bad to play, he says. Isn’t it beastly?”“Do you mean it, Burr junior?”“Yes,” I said. “I’m very, very queer. I couldn’t play.”“You ain’t shamming, are you?”“Look at me and see,” I replied faintly, and directly after I felt a cool hand laid on my burning forehead.“There’s no gammon about it,” said Hodson. “We must do the best we can. Look sharp, Senna.”“Yes,” said Burr major; “he’ll have to take a turn at the bowling.”“I shan’t play if Frank Burr don’t,” said Mercer stoutly.“What?” cried the two boys together.“You must put some one else on instead of me; I’ve got a headache too.”“Oh, I say,” cried Hodson, and he and Burr both tried hard to shake Mercer’s sudden resolution. I too tried, but it was of no use; he grew more stubborn every minute; and after Burr major had again referred to his watch, the two lads went off together, disappointed and vexed.“You might have gone and played with them, Tom,” I said.“I know that,” he replied; “but I wasn’t going without you. I’m going to stop and talk.”“No, no, don’t,” I said. “I only want to be quiet till— Oh, my head, my head!”“Why, Burr junior, what’s this?” cried Mr Hasnip, coming up and speaking cheerily. “Bad headache? not going to play?”“No, sir, I feel too ill.”“Oh, come, this is a bad job. Hi, Rebble!”The latter gentleman came up.“Here’s Burr junior queer. Does he want a doctor, do you think?”Mr Rebble looked at me attentively for a few moments, and then said quietly,—“No; only a bilious headache, I should say. Go and lie down for an hour or two, my lad, and perhaps it will pass off.”I gladly crawled up to our dormitory, took off my jacket and boots, and lay down on the bed, when I seemed to drop at once into a doze, from which I started to find Mercer seated by the window looking out.“Better?” he said, as I stirred.“Better! No; I feel very ill. But what are you doing here?”“Come to sit with you,” he said stolidly.Just then there was a burst of cheering, and the crunching noise made by wheels.“Here they are,” cried Mercer excitedly. “Oh, I say, I do wish you were better! I should like to lick those Hastings chaps.”“Then why don’t you go?” I said pettishly. “Go and bowl.”“Shan’t, without you,” was the only reply I could get, and I lay turning my head from side to side, trying to find a cool spot on the pillow, to hear every now and then a shout from the field, and then a burst of plaudits, or cries of, “Well run!”“Bravo!”“Well fielded!” and more hand-clapping, all borne faintly in at the window, where Mercer sat with his arms folded, gazing out, but unable to see the field from where he was.After a time I once more dropped off into a doze and woke again with a start, under the impression that I had been asleep all day.My head was not quite so bad, and, after lying still, thinking, and listening to the shouts from the cricket-field, I said weakly,—“Have they nearly done, Tom?”“Done! No, of course not.”“What time is it?”“Don’t know. Haven’t got a watch.”“Well, what time do you think it is?”“’Bout two. They’ve just gone to the wickets again after lunch.”“Why don’t you go and join them now?”“You know. How’s your head?”“A little better, I think.”“Well enough to come down and look on?”“Oh no,” I said, with a shudder; “I feel too sick and ill for that.”“Have another snooze, then, and you’ll be better still.”“But it’s too bad to keep you out of the fun,” I said.“I didn’t grumble. Go to sleep.”I determined that I would not, but I did, and woke again, to repeat my question about the time, and receive the answer that my companion had not got a watch.“How long have I been asleep, then?” I asked.“’Bout an hour. Here! hi! what are you going to do?”“Get up, and go down in the field,” I said.“Hooray! Then it’s all right again?”“No,” I replied; “but it’s a little better, and I should like to go and lie down under the big hedge, and see our fellows win.”“Come, I do like that,” cried Mercer eagerly, as I went to the wash-stand, well bathed my temples, and then, feeling very sick and faint, but not in such pain, I put on my jacket and boots, and we went slowly down-stairs, and out into the field, where every one was too intent to take much notice of us, as Tom led me up to the big hedge, where I lay down on the grass about fifty yards from where the tent stood close up; and from time to time I saw the boys who were about to go in to bat, go to the tent to take off their jackets and vests, and come out ready for the fight.Our boys were in, and I saw Dicksee change and go to the wicket to come back with a “duck’s egg,” as we called it. Then Hodson went in and made a stand, but a quarter of an hour later, the boy who faced him was caught, and Burr major walked up to the tent, disappeared, and came out again all in white, with a brand-new bat over his shoulder.Just then Mercer, who had been round to the scorers, came back, and stood watching Burr major as he marched off.“Oh, I say,” he said, “don’t you wish you were in it, Frank?”“Yes,” I said, with a sigh. Then— “How’s the game now?”“We’re a hundred behind ’em, and our fellows can’t stand their bowling. If Eely and Hodson don’t make a big stand, we shall have a horrid licking. Better?”“Yes, a little,” I said faintly, and then I lay watching the game, while Mercer walked about—now going up to the empty tent where the boys’ clothes were, now coming back to me to talk about the game. Once he went and lay down near the tent. Another time he went by it out of sight, but he was soon back to see how I was, and off in the other direction, this time to go right round the field and come back by the tent, and throw himself down by my side.“What do you think of it now? Oh, look! Hooray! hooray! Run! run! run!” he roared, and then joined in the hand-clapping, for Hodson had made a splendid leg hit, which brought us in four, and two more from an overthrow.This excited Tom Mercer to such an extent that he could not lie still, but went off again in the direction of the tent, while I began to know that I was better, from the interest I was able to take in the game.Then, after seeing Burr major and Hodson make hit after hit, for they were now well in, and punishing the bowling to a tremendous extent, I began to think about how good-companion-like it had been of Mercer to spoil his own pleasure so as to stay with me, and I lay there resting on my elbow, watching him for a few minutes, as he stood close up to the tent.“Well, Burr junior, how’s the head?” cried Mr Hasnip, strolling up with Mr Rebble.“A good deal better, sir,” I replied, “but very far from well.”“You’ll have to take a long night’s rest before it will be quite right,” said Mr Rebble. “By the way, Mrs Browne said I was to report how you were, so that she could send you something to take if you did not seem better.”“Oh, I’m ever so much better, sir!” I cried hastily, for I had a keen recollection of one of the good lady’s doses which she had prescribed, and whose taste I seemed to distinguish then.“Oh yes, you’ll be all right in the morning,” said Mr Hasnip. “Well, Mercer, how are we getting on?”“I haven’t been to the scorers’ table, sir,” said Mercer, who had just come back from a spot near the tent, where he could get a better view of the field than from where I lay under the big oak tree.“Run and ask, my lad,” said Mr Rebble, and he and Mr Hasnip sat down near me, and chatted so pleasantly that I forgot all about the way in which they tortured me sometimes with questions.In due time Mercer came back to announce that Hodson and Burr major had put on sixty-one between them, and that there were hopes that the game might be pulled out of the fire even then.Mercer sat down now beside me, and, the ground in front clearing a little, we had a good view of the game, which grew more and more interesting as the strangers fought their best to separate our two strongest men, and stop them from steadily piling up the score; the loud bursts of shouting stirring them on to new efforts, which resulted in the ball being sent here, there, and everywhere, for twos, threes, and fours, till the excitement seemed to have no bounds.Then came a check, just as the servants had been busy carrying urns, teapots, and piled-up plates into the tent, for it was getting late in the afternoon.The check was caused by a ball sent skying by Hodson and cleverly caught, with the result that one of our best cricketers shouldered his bat and marched off the ground, but proudly, for he had had a splendid innings, and quite a jubilation of clapping hands ran round the field.Another took his place, and helped Burr major to make a little longer stand, but the spirit had gone out of his play, which became more and more cautious. He stole one here and sent the ball for one there, but made no more brilliant hits for threes and fours.At last after a good innings the fresh man was clean bowled, and another took his place.“Last of ’em,” said Mercer. “Oh, if they can only do it! We only want five to win.”But during the next quarter of an hour these five were not made. The new-comer contented himself with playing on the defensive, and with the knowledge to trouble him of the game resting entirely on his shoulders, Burr major grew more and more nervous, missing excellent chances that he would have jumped at earlier in his innings.“Four to win.” Then the fresh boy got a chance, and made one which sent our lads nearly frantic.“Three only to win,” and there seemed to be not a doubt of our success now,—for it was “our” success, though I had had nothing to do with the result.And now Burr major had a splendid chance, but he was too nervous to take it, and the over proved blank, as did the next. But in the one which followed, the fresh boy sent a ball just by mid-wicket, a run was stolen, and I, too, grew so excited that I forgot my headache and rose to my knees.It was a fresh over, a change had been made in the bowling, and the first ball was delivered and stopped.The second ball went rushing by the wicket, but it was not wide; and now the third ball was bowled. It seemed to be an easy one, and in the midst of the most profound excitement, Burr major gathered himself together for a big hit, struck out, and—the ball went flying out of the field?No; Burr major just missed it, the off-bail was bowled clean and fell a dozen yards away.We were beaten.
If there was any one thing I dearly loved, it was a good game—a regular well-fought struggle—at cricket. Oddly enough, I used to like to be on the losing side, with the eleven who were so far behind that their fight was becoming desperate, and every effort had to be made to steal a run here and another there, slowly building up the score, with the excitement gradually increasing, and the weaker side growing stronger and more hopeful hour by hour, till, perhaps, by the clever batting of one boy, who has got well to work, and who, full of confidence, sets at defiance the best efforts in every change of bowler, the score is lifted right up to the winning-point, and he comes back to the tent with the bat over his shoulder, amidst the cheers of all the lookers-on.
I suppose I got on well with my education at Doctor Browne’s. I know I got on well at cricket, for whenever a match was made up for some holiday, I was in so much request that both sides were eager to have me.
The Doctor had promised us a holiday to play the boys of a school at Hastings. They were to come over on an omnibus, and a tent was to be set up in our field, where, after the game, a high tea was to be provided for the visitors before they returned to Hastings in the evening.
I need hardly say that the day was looked forward to with the greatest eagerness, and that plans were made to give our visitors a thorough good thrashing.
Burr major, as captain of the eleven, rather unwillingly, I’m afraid, but for the sake of the credit of the school, selected Mercer and me for the match. I was to be wicket-keeper, and Mercer, from his clever and enduring running, and power to cover so much ground, was made long field off.
Burr major and Stewart were to bowl, with Dicksee as a change when necessary, for he had a peculiar knack and twist in handling a ball, and could puzzle good players by sending in an innocent-looking, slowly-pitched ball, which looked as if it was going wide, and, when it had put the batsman off his guard, and induced him to change his position, so as to send the ball flying out of the field, it would suddenly curl round and go right into the wicket.
All went well. We practised every evening, and again for an hour before breakfast each morning, and, as I warmed up to my task, I easily stopped all Stewart’s or Burr major’s swiftest balls, and got to know how to deal with what Mercer called “old Dicksee’s jerry sneaks.” The tent came from Hastings the day before, and was set up ready, and the next day was to be the match.
But, as Burns says, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.” So it was here; our plans went very much “a-gley,” for I awoke on the morning of the match with a headache, which I knew would completely upset me for the day.
I did not know then, but I know now, that it was Polly Hopley’s fault, and that her turnovers and cake were far too rich to be eaten in quantity by two boys sitting up in bed, and going to sleep directly after, in spite of the crumbs and scales of crust. I just remember that I had a bad night, full of unpleasant dreams, all connected with the cricket match in some way. Now I was being horribly beaten; now I was running after the ball, which went on and on, far away into space, and would not be overtaken, and it was still bounding away when I awoke with a start. Then I fell asleep again, and lay bound and helpless, as it seemed to me, with Burr major taking advantage of my position to come and triumph over me, which he did at first by sitting on my chest, and then springing up to go through a kind of war-dance upon me, while I stared up at him helplessly.
Then Dicksee came with his face all swollen up, as it was after the fight, but he was grinning derisively at me, and while Burr major seemed to hold me down by keeping one foot pressed on my chest, Dicksee knelt by my side, and began to beat my head with a cricket bat.
Bang, bang! bang, bang! Blows that fell with the regularity of the beats of a pendulum, and it seemed to me that he beat me into a state of insensibility, for both Burr major and he faded from my eyesight, though the blows of the bat were still falling upon my head when I awoke in the morning; that is to say, they seemed to be falling, and it was some minutes before I fully understood that I was suffering from a bad bilious headache.
“Now then, why don’t you jump up?” said Mercer, as I lay with my eyes shut, and at this I got up slowly, began to dress, and then, feeling too giddy to stand, sat down by my bed.
“What’s the matter?” cried Mercer.
“So ill. Head’s so bad.”
“Oh, that will be all right when you’ve had your breakfast. Mine aches too. Look sharp. It’s ever so late.”
I tried to look sharp, but I’m afraid I looked very blunt, and it took me a long time to get dressed and down-stairs, and out in the fresh morning air, where I walked up and down a bit, and then suffered myself to be led into the play-field to see what a splendid tent had been raised, with its canvas back close up to the hedge which separated the Doctor’s grounds from the farm, with the intervening dry ditch, which always seemed to be full of the biggest stinging nettles I ever saw.
It was a glorious morning, the turf was short and beautifully level, the boys having joined hands the previous night to drag the great roller well over it. But the sunshine, the blue sky, and the delicious green of the hedges and trees were all nothing to me then, and I let Mercer chatter on about the chances of the other side, which, as far as I was concerned, promised to be excellent.
The breakfast-bell rang, and we went in, but that morning meal did not fulfil Mercer’s prophecy and carry off my ailment, for I could not touch a bit.
“Oh, you are a fellow!” cried my comrade. “Well; perhaps you are right. My father says it’s best not to eat and drink when you have a bad headache. But look sharp and get well; the chaps will be over in good time.”
By and by the news reached the captain of our eleven, and he came to me all smiles and civility, for all Burr major’s ideas of revenge seemed to have died out, as I thought, because I never presumed upon my victory.
“Oh, I say, Burr junior,” he cried, “this won’t do! You must look sharp and get well.”
“I want to,” I replied dolefully; “but I’m afraid I shan’t be able to play.”
“But you must. If you don’t, they’ll be sure to beat us, and that would be horrid.”
“You mustn’t let them beat you,” I said, wishing all the while that he would go, for my head throbbed more than ever, and varied it with a sensation as of hot molten lead running round inside my forehead in a way that was agonising.
“But what are we to do for a wicket-keeper?”
“You must take my place,” I said feebly. “You are the best wicket-keeper we have.”
“No,” he cried frankly, “you are; but I think I’m the best bowler.”
“Well, you will be obliged to keep wicket to-day,” I said, with a groan. “I shall never be able to stir, I’m sure.”
“Well, you do look precious mouldy,” he cried. “It’s a nuisance, and no mistake. I suppose we must make shift, then?”
“Yes; let Dicksee and Hodson bowl all the time.”
“And I can put Senna on now and then for an over or two.”
“I can’t bowl well enough,” said Mercer.
“Oh yes, you can when you like,” said Burr major. “And, I say,” he cried, taking out his watch, “it’s getting close to the time.”
Mercer’s eyes glistened as the watch was examined, and it seemed to me that my companion sighed as the watch was replaced.
Just then Hodson came up.
“How is he?”
“Too bad to play, he says. Isn’t it beastly?”
“Do you mean it, Burr junior?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m very, very queer. I couldn’t play.”
“You ain’t shamming, are you?”
“Look at me and see,” I replied faintly, and directly after I felt a cool hand laid on my burning forehead.
“There’s no gammon about it,” said Hodson. “We must do the best we can. Look sharp, Senna.”
“Yes,” said Burr major; “he’ll have to take a turn at the bowling.”
“I shan’t play if Frank Burr don’t,” said Mercer stoutly.
“What?” cried the two boys together.
“You must put some one else on instead of me; I’ve got a headache too.”
“Oh, I say,” cried Hodson, and he and Burr both tried hard to shake Mercer’s sudden resolution. I too tried, but it was of no use; he grew more stubborn every minute; and after Burr major had again referred to his watch, the two lads went off together, disappointed and vexed.
“You might have gone and played with them, Tom,” I said.
“I know that,” he replied; “but I wasn’t going without you. I’m going to stop and talk.”
“No, no, don’t,” I said. “I only want to be quiet till— Oh, my head, my head!”
“Why, Burr junior, what’s this?” cried Mr Hasnip, coming up and speaking cheerily. “Bad headache? not going to play?”
“No, sir, I feel too ill.”
“Oh, come, this is a bad job. Hi, Rebble!”
The latter gentleman came up.
“Here’s Burr junior queer. Does he want a doctor, do you think?”
Mr Rebble looked at me attentively for a few moments, and then said quietly,—
“No; only a bilious headache, I should say. Go and lie down for an hour or two, my lad, and perhaps it will pass off.”
I gladly crawled up to our dormitory, took off my jacket and boots, and lay down on the bed, when I seemed to drop at once into a doze, from which I started to find Mercer seated by the window looking out.
“Better?” he said, as I stirred.
“Better! No; I feel very ill. But what are you doing here?”
“Come to sit with you,” he said stolidly.
Just then there was a burst of cheering, and the crunching noise made by wheels.
“Here they are,” cried Mercer excitedly. “Oh, I say, I do wish you were better! I should like to lick those Hastings chaps.”
“Then why don’t you go?” I said pettishly. “Go and bowl.”
“Shan’t, without you,” was the only reply I could get, and I lay turning my head from side to side, trying to find a cool spot on the pillow, to hear every now and then a shout from the field, and then a burst of plaudits, or cries of, “Well run!”
“Bravo!”
“Well fielded!” and more hand-clapping, all borne faintly in at the window, where Mercer sat with his arms folded, gazing out, but unable to see the field from where he was.
After a time I once more dropped off into a doze and woke again with a start, under the impression that I had been asleep all day.
My head was not quite so bad, and, after lying still, thinking, and listening to the shouts from the cricket-field, I said weakly,—
“Have they nearly done, Tom?”
“Done! No, of course not.”
“What time is it?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t got a watch.”
“Well, what time do you think it is?”
“’Bout two. They’ve just gone to the wickets again after lunch.”
“Why don’t you go and join them now?”
“You know. How’s your head?”
“A little better, I think.”
“Well enough to come down and look on?”
“Oh no,” I said, with a shudder; “I feel too sick and ill for that.”
“Have another snooze, then, and you’ll be better still.”
“But it’s too bad to keep you out of the fun,” I said.
“I didn’t grumble. Go to sleep.”
I determined that I would not, but I did, and woke again, to repeat my question about the time, and receive the answer that my companion had not got a watch.
“How long have I been asleep, then?” I asked.
“’Bout an hour. Here! hi! what are you going to do?”
“Get up, and go down in the field,” I said.
“Hooray! Then it’s all right again?”
“No,” I replied; “but it’s a little better, and I should like to go and lie down under the big hedge, and see our fellows win.”
“Come, I do like that,” cried Mercer eagerly, as I went to the wash-stand, well bathed my temples, and then, feeling very sick and faint, but not in such pain, I put on my jacket and boots, and we went slowly down-stairs, and out into the field, where every one was too intent to take much notice of us, as Tom led me up to the big hedge, where I lay down on the grass about fifty yards from where the tent stood close up; and from time to time I saw the boys who were about to go in to bat, go to the tent to take off their jackets and vests, and come out ready for the fight.
Our boys were in, and I saw Dicksee change and go to the wicket to come back with a “duck’s egg,” as we called it. Then Hodson went in and made a stand, but a quarter of an hour later, the boy who faced him was caught, and Burr major walked up to the tent, disappeared, and came out again all in white, with a brand-new bat over his shoulder.
Just then Mercer, who had been round to the scorers, came back, and stood watching Burr major as he marched off.
“Oh, I say,” he said, “don’t you wish you were in it, Frank?”
“Yes,” I said, with a sigh. Then— “How’s the game now?”
“We’re a hundred behind ’em, and our fellows can’t stand their bowling. If Eely and Hodson don’t make a big stand, we shall have a horrid licking. Better?”
“Yes, a little,” I said faintly, and then I lay watching the game, while Mercer walked about—now going up to the empty tent where the boys’ clothes were, now coming back to me to talk about the game. Once he went and lay down near the tent. Another time he went by it out of sight, but he was soon back to see how I was, and off in the other direction, this time to go right round the field and come back by the tent, and throw himself down by my side.
“What do you think of it now? Oh, look! Hooray! hooray! Run! run! run!” he roared, and then joined in the hand-clapping, for Hodson had made a splendid leg hit, which brought us in four, and two more from an overthrow.
This excited Tom Mercer to such an extent that he could not lie still, but went off again in the direction of the tent, while I began to know that I was better, from the interest I was able to take in the game.
Then, after seeing Burr major and Hodson make hit after hit, for they were now well in, and punishing the bowling to a tremendous extent, I began to think about how good-companion-like it had been of Mercer to spoil his own pleasure so as to stay with me, and I lay there resting on my elbow, watching him for a few minutes, as he stood close up to the tent.
“Well, Burr junior, how’s the head?” cried Mr Hasnip, strolling up with Mr Rebble.
“A good deal better, sir,” I replied, “but very far from well.”
“You’ll have to take a long night’s rest before it will be quite right,” said Mr Rebble. “By the way, Mrs Browne said I was to report how you were, so that she could send you something to take if you did not seem better.”
“Oh, I’m ever so much better, sir!” I cried hastily, for I had a keen recollection of one of the good lady’s doses which she had prescribed, and whose taste I seemed to distinguish then.
“Oh yes, you’ll be all right in the morning,” said Mr Hasnip. “Well, Mercer, how are we getting on?”
“I haven’t been to the scorers’ table, sir,” said Mercer, who had just come back from a spot near the tent, where he could get a better view of the field than from where I lay under the big oak tree.
“Run and ask, my lad,” said Mr Rebble, and he and Mr Hasnip sat down near me, and chatted so pleasantly that I forgot all about the way in which they tortured me sometimes with questions.
In due time Mercer came back to announce that Hodson and Burr major had put on sixty-one between them, and that there were hopes that the game might be pulled out of the fire even then.
Mercer sat down now beside me, and, the ground in front clearing a little, we had a good view of the game, which grew more and more interesting as the strangers fought their best to separate our two strongest men, and stop them from steadily piling up the score; the loud bursts of shouting stirring them on to new efforts, which resulted in the ball being sent here, there, and everywhere, for twos, threes, and fours, till the excitement seemed to have no bounds.
Then came a check, just as the servants had been busy carrying urns, teapots, and piled-up plates into the tent, for it was getting late in the afternoon.
The check was caused by a ball sent skying by Hodson and cleverly caught, with the result that one of our best cricketers shouldered his bat and marched off the ground, but proudly, for he had had a splendid innings, and quite a jubilation of clapping hands ran round the field.
Another took his place, and helped Burr major to make a little longer stand, but the spirit had gone out of his play, which became more and more cautious. He stole one here and sent the ball for one there, but made no more brilliant hits for threes and fours.
At last after a good innings the fresh man was clean bowled, and another took his place.
“Last of ’em,” said Mercer. “Oh, if they can only do it! We only want five to win.”
But during the next quarter of an hour these five were not made. The new-comer contented himself with playing on the defensive, and with the knowledge to trouble him of the game resting entirely on his shoulders, Burr major grew more and more nervous, missing excellent chances that he would have jumped at earlier in his innings.
“Four to win.” Then the fresh boy got a chance, and made one which sent our lads nearly frantic.
“Three only to win,” and there seemed to be not a doubt of our success now,—for it was “our” success, though I had had nothing to do with the result.
And now Burr major had a splendid chance, but he was too nervous to take it, and the over proved blank, as did the next. But in the one which followed, the fresh boy sent a ball just by mid-wicket, a run was stolen, and I, too, grew so excited that I forgot my headache and rose to my knees.
It was a fresh over, a change had been made in the bowling, and the first ball was delivered and stopped.
The second ball went rushing by the wicket, but it was not wide; and now the third ball was bowled. It seemed to be an easy one, and in the midst of the most profound excitement, Burr major gathered himself together for a big hit, struck out, and—the ball went flying out of the field?
No; Burr major just missed it, the off-bail was bowled clean and fell a dozen yards away.
We were beaten.
Chapter Twenty Three.There was a tremendous burst of cheering and a rush for the tent by the boys who had left their jackets within, and among them Burr major, disappointed, but at the same time justly proud of the splendid score he had made, walked up to the door, disappeared amongst plenty of clapping, and soon after came out again in his jacket and vest.We had all clustered up round about the players, and two masters shook hands with the champion, who directly after caught sight of me.“Hallo! How’s the head?” he cried.“Getting better now.”“I saw you watching the match,” he continued. “Nice time you had of it lying about under that tree, while we fellows did all the work.”“I should have liked to be in it,” I said rather drearily; “but I really was very bad.”His attention was called off soon after, and then there was a summons to the tent for the festive high tea, which was to come off directly, as the Hastings boys had a long drive back.I was much better, but the thought of food in that crowded tent was nauseating, and, watching my opportunity, I slipped away, seeing Tom Mercer looking about as if in search of me before going into the tent.“I know what I’ll do,” I thought. “I’ll walk gently down along the lane to Bob Hopley’s place, and ask Polly to make me a cup of tea and cut me some bread and butter.”The plan was simple enough, and I strolled out and along the road, and then entered a gate, to make a short cut along the hedge side of the fields.The evening was glorious, and after a broiling day the soft moist odours that came from the copses dotted here and there seemed delightfully refreshing, and so I strolled on and on till I was only a short distance from the cottage, which was separated from me by a couple of fields, when I turned slowly toward a corner of the enclosure I was in, where there was a pond and a patch of moist land where weeds never noticed towered up in abundance, and, to my surprise, I caught sight of Magglin seated on the bank of the pond, with his feet hanging close to the water, and apparently engaged in his evening toilet. It seemed to me that he must have been washing his face, and that he was now wiping it upon some great leaves which he plucked from time to time.“No, he isn’t,” I said to myself the next moment. “He has been poaching, and saw me coming. It’s all a pretence to throw me off the scent;” and I went on, my way being close by him, and there he was rubbing away at his face with the leaves, while I glanced here and there in search of a wire set for rabbit or hare, though I shrewdly suspected that the wire he had been setting would be over in the copse beyond the pond, in the expectation of getting a pheasant.He was so quick of hearing that he could detect a footstep some distance off, but this time he turned round sharply when I exclaimed,—“Hallo, Magglin!”“Eh—I— Oh, how de do, sir?”“Better than you do,” I said sharply. “What have you been doing to your face?”“Face? Oh, rubbing it a bit, sir, that’s all. Good as washing.”“Dock leaves,” I said. “What, have you stung yourself?”“Oh yes, I forgot that, sir. Just a little bit, sir. I was coming through the hedge down below there, and a ’ormous old nettle flew back and hit me acrost the cheek. But it aren’t nothing.”More than I should like to have, I thought to myself, as I went on, for his face was spotted with white patches, and I knew how they must tingle.Ten minutes after, I was in the lane, in time to meet Polly Hopley, in her best bonnet and with a key in her hand, going up to the cottage door.She smiled as she saw me, hurried to the cottage, unlocked the door, and stood back for me to enter.“Been out, Polly?” I said.“Yes, sir, of course. Father took me to see the cricket match. Doctor Browne told father we might come into the field, and it were lovely. But why didn’t you play?”I told her, and she expressed her sympathy. Then, in a very decided way,—“Sweets and puffs aren’t good for you, sir, and I won’t sell you one to-day.”“I don’t want any, Polly,” I replied. “I was going to ask you to sell me a cup of tea.”“And I won’t do that neither, sir; but I’m going to make myself some directly, and if you’ll condescend to sit down in father’s big chair and have some, I should be glad.”To the girl’s great delight, I accepted her offer. The kettle hanging over the smouldering fire of wood ashes was soon boiling, and I partook of a delicious tea, with fresh water-cresses from the spring, and cream in my tea from the General’s dairy, while Polly cut bread and butter, and chatted about “father’s” troubles with the poachers, and about the baits he had been getting ready for our next fishing visit to the ponds. Then again about the cricket match, and we were carrying on an animated conversation when the door was thrown quickly open, and Bob Hopley appeared.“Oh, dad, how you startled me!” cried Polly, jumping up.“Startled you, my lass? I heerd loud talking and I’d been told young Magglin had come down this way, and I thought it was him.”“I saw him just before I came in, over by the pond there by the copse,” I said.“He wasn’t likely to be in here, father,” said Polly primly. “I should like to catch him trying to come in.”“So should I,” said the keeper grimly. “I’d try oak that time ’stead o’ hazel.”“Hush, dad! do adone,” whispered Polly. Then aloud—“Master Burr’s been poorly all day, and as they were all feasting and junketing at the school, he come down here to ask me to make him some tea, and he’s very welcome, aren’t he, father?”“I should just think he is, my lass. But fill up his cup again, and he’s got no fresh butter.”“I’ve done,” I said; “and oh, I do feel so much better now! Do you know what a bad sick headache is?”“No, my lad, no. I aren’t had one since—”“Oh, father!”“Come, Polly, don’t be hard on a man. That was only the club feast.”“I haven’t patience with such feasts,” said Polly sharply. “I never go to feasts, and come back—”“Poorly, my lass, poorly,” said Bob hastily.“Yes, very poorly,” said Polly sarcastically, “and say, ‘My head’s fit to split,’ next day. Seems to me that’s all such heads are fit for then—to split and burn.”“Nay, nay, my lass, they burn quite enough, I can tell ’ee. Man does do stoopid things sometimes.”Bob was very apologetic about sitting down to tea, with me there. Then of course I apologised, and sat watching him drinking great draughts out of a basin and devouring huge slices of bread and butter.“Rare stuff kettle broth, sir,” he said. “Don’t give you no headaches; do it, Polly?”“No, father.”“She don’t make it strong enough for that, Mr Burr, sir,” he continued, giving me a wink.“Quite as strong as is good for you, father.”“Right, my lass,” said Bob, helping himself to some more cream, “and not so strong as is good for you.”I rose to go soon after, and the keeper joined with his daughter in absolutely refusing to let me pay for my meal.“Glad to have seen you, sir; and now mind that as soon as ever your young friend Mas’ Mercer—Mas’ Bri’sh Museum, as I call him—is ready, and you can get a day, I’ll take you to our stock pond, where the carps and tenches are so thick, they’re asking to be caught. You shall have a day.”“Good-bye, Polly,” I said, shaking hands. “You’ve quite cured my head.”“I am so glad, sir!” she cried; and I went back to the school, Bob seeing me part of the way, and saying to me confidentially as we walked,—“You see me leathering that poaching vagabond Magglin, sir. It’s like this. The reason for it was— No, sir. Good-night. You’re too young to talk about that sort o’ thing. Don’t forget about the fish.”He hurried away without another word, while I went on, and found Tom Mercer looking for me, and eager to hear where I had been.“What a shame!” he cried. “The high tea was very jolly, but I missed you. I wish I’d gone too. I say, we were licked, but it was a splendid match after all. Hallo! here’s Hodson. The chaps all went off on their ’bus cheering and— Hooray, Hodson! what a day!”“Yes; but I say,” said the lad, “Burr major’s lost his watch.”“His watch!” cried Mercer, giving quite a jump. “Oh!”“Yes; he left it in his waistcoat in the tent when he stripped for his innings, and when he felt for it some time after, it was gone.”“Then he didn’t miss it directly?” I said.“No, not till a little while ago. A lot of the fellows are up in the field searching for it. Haven’t either of you seen it, have you?”“No,” I said, and Mercer shook his head.“Come on and help look for it,” cried Hodson; and we went up to the field, where the tent was still standing, it being understood that the men were to come and take it down in the morning.“Lucky they were not here,” I said, “or some of them might have been suspected of taking it.”“Yes, it would be ugly for them,” assented Hodson. “You see, nobody but our boys and the Hastings chaps went into the tent, except the servants to lay the tables, and of course they wouldn’t have taken it.”“But they may have found it,” I said. “He is sure to have dropped it somewhere in the grass.”“Of course,” cried Mercer; “and some one has put his foot on it and smashed the glass.”“Get out, Senna! you always make the worst of every thing,” cried Hodson merrily; and soon after, we reached the field, where the boys were spread about, looking in all kinds of possible and impossible places—impossible because Burr major had never been near them after he had put on his things.“Are you sure that you brought your watch out in the field,” said Mr Hasnip, who was one of the group standing by Burr major.“Oh yes, sir, certain.”“But it does not do to be too certain, my lad. Have you been up in your bedroom, and looked there?”“No, sir, because I was so sure I brought it out.”“Why were you so sure?”“Because—because I thought I would wear it, as we had strangers coming.”“Never mind, you may have altered your mind. Go and look. You see we have thoroughly searched every place where you could have been.”“I’ll go and look, sir,” said Burr major, “but it’s of no use.”He went off toward the schoolhouse, and Mr Rebble then coming up, the two masters began to talk about the missing watch.“It is so awkward,” said Mr Rebble. “We can’t write and ask the party if either of them took a watch by mistake. Stop! I have it.”“The watch?” cried Mr Hasnip eagerly.“No. Wait till he comes back, and I think I can explain it all.”We had not long to wait before Burr major came back to us.“No, sir,” he said. “I’ve looked everywhere; it isn’t in my room.”“Then I think I can help you,” said Mr Rebble. “What jacket and vest are those you have on?”“My third best, sir.”“Are you sure?”“Yes, sir,” said Burr major wonderingly.“Look at them,” continued Mr Rebble. “Are they really your own things, and not the clothes of one of our visitors taken by mistake, and he has taken yours.”Burr major slipped off his jacket and held it up in the dusk to point out a label inside the collar, where, worked in blue silk upon white satin, was the name of the maker, his own father.“Yes, that’s yours,” said Mr Rebble in a disappointed tone. “I thought that the mistake might have been made. But the vest—are you sure of that?”“Oh yes,” said Burr major, who then looked inside the collar and found the same maker’s name.“I thought that, sir,” said Burr major; “but I could feel that they were my things as soon as I put them on. I say, has any fellow taken my watch for a game?”There was silence at first, then a murmur of, “No, no, no;” and, as it was getting too dark now to resume the search, we all trooped back to the schoolroom to sit and talk over the one event which had spoiled what would otherwise have been a most enjoyable day, for, as Tom Mercer said when we went up to bed,—“It’s nicer for those Hastings chaps to have won. They’ve gone back jollier. By and by we shall be going over to play them, and then we shall be in the eleven, and must win.”A pause.“I said, ‘And then we must win.’”“Yes, I heard you.”“Then why didn’t you speak?”“Because I was thinking about Burr major’s watch.”“Oh, bother his watch!” said Mercer hastily. “I’m beginning to be glad that he has lost it. Now he won’t be always flourishing it in your face and seeming to say, ‘Poor fellow, I’m sorry you haven’t got a watch too.’”“Well, you needn’t be so cross about it,” I said.“Why needn’t I? One gets sick of his watch. There’s always been a fuss about it ever since he came back with it. It’s lost now, and a jolly good job too. Now we’ve heard the end of it. Old Eely’s watch is regularly wound up.”
There was a tremendous burst of cheering and a rush for the tent by the boys who had left their jackets within, and among them Burr major, disappointed, but at the same time justly proud of the splendid score he had made, walked up to the door, disappeared amongst plenty of clapping, and soon after came out again in his jacket and vest.
We had all clustered up round about the players, and two masters shook hands with the champion, who directly after caught sight of me.
“Hallo! How’s the head?” he cried.
“Getting better now.”
“I saw you watching the match,” he continued. “Nice time you had of it lying about under that tree, while we fellows did all the work.”
“I should have liked to be in it,” I said rather drearily; “but I really was very bad.”
His attention was called off soon after, and then there was a summons to the tent for the festive high tea, which was to come off directly, as the Hastings boys had a long drive back.
I was much better, but the thought of food in that crowded tent was nauseating, and, watching my opportunity, I slipped away, seeing Tom Mercer looking about as if in search of me before going into the tent.
“I know what I’ll do,” I thought. “I’ll walk gently down along the lane to Bob Hopley’s place, and ask Polly to make me a cup of tea and cut me some bread and butter.”
The plan was simple enough, and I strolled out and along the road, and then entered a gate, to make a short cut along the hedge side of the fields.
The evening was glorious, and after a broiling day the soft moist odours that came from the copses dotted here and there seemed delightfully refreshing, and so I strolled on and on till I was only a short distance from the cottage, which was separated from me by a couple of fields, when I turned slowly toward a corner of the enclosure I was in, where there was a pond and a patch of moist land where weeds never noticed towered up in abundance, and, to my surprise, I caught sight of Magglin seated on the bank of the pond, with his feet hanging close to the water, and apparently engaged in his evening toilet. It seemed to me that he must have been washing his face, and that he was now wiping it upon some great leaves which he plucked from time to time.
“No, he isn’t,” I said to myself the next moment. “He has been poaching, and saw me coming. It’s all a pretence to throw me off the scent;” and I went on, my way being close by him, and there he was rubbing away at his face with the leaves, while I glanced here and there in search of a wire set for rabbit or hare, though I shrewdly suspected that the wire he had been setting would be over in the copse beyond the pond, in the expectation of getting a pheasant.
He was so quick of hearing that he could detect a footstep some distance off, but this time he turned round sharply when I exclaimed,—
“Hallo, Magglin!”
“Eh—I— Oh, how de do, sir?”
“Better than you do,” I said sharply. “What have you been doing to your face?”
“Face? Oh, rubbing it a bit, sir, that’s all. Good as washing.”
“Dock leaves,” I said. “What, have you stung yourself?”
“Oh yes, I forgot that, sir. Just a little bit, sir. I was coming through the hedge down below there, and a ’ormous old nettle flew back and hit me acrost the cheek. But it aren’t nothing.”
More than I should like to have, I thought to myself, as I went on, for his face was spotted with white patches, and I knew how they must tingle.
Ten minutes after, I was in the lane, in time to meet Polly Hopley, in her best bonnet and with a key in her hand, going up to the cottage door.
She smiled as she saw me, hurried to the cottage, unlocked the door, and stood back for me to enter.
“Been out, Polly?” I said.
“Yes, sir, of course. Father took me to see the cricket match. Doctor Browne told father we might come into the field, and it were lovely. But why didn’t you play?”
I told her, and she expressed her sympathy. Then, in a very decided way,—
“Sweets and puffs aren’t good for you, sir, and I won’t sell you one to-day.”
“I don’t want any, Polly,” I replied. “I was going to ask you to sell me a cup of tea.”
“And I won’t do that neither, sir; but I’m going to make myself some directly, and if you’ll condescend to sit down in father’s big chair and have some, I should be glad.”
To the girl’s great delight, I accepted her offer. The kettle hanging over the smouldering fire of wood ashes was soon boiling, and I partook of a delicious tea, with fresh water-cresses from the spring, and cream in my tea from the General’s dairy, while Polly cut bread and butter, and chatted about “father’s” troubles with the poachers, and about the baits he had been getting ready for our next fishing visit to the ponds. Then again about the cricket match, and we were carrying on an animated conversation when the door was thrown quickly open, and Bob Hopley appeared.
“Oh, dad, how you startled me!” cried Polly, jumping up.
“Startled you, my lass? I heerd loud talking and I’d been told young Magglin had come down this way, and I thought it was him.”
“I saw him just before I came in, over by the pond there by the copse,” I said.
“He wasn’t likely to be in here, father,” said Polly primly. “I should like to catch him trying to come in.”
“So should I,” said the keeper grimly. “I’d try oak that time ’stead o’ hazel.”
“Hush, dad! do adone,” whispered Polly. Then aloud—
“Master Burr’s been poorly all day, and as they were all feasting and junketing at the school, he come down here to ask me to make him some tea, and he’s very welcome, aren’t he, father?”
“I should just think he is, my lass. But fill up his cup again, and he’s got no fresh butter.”
“I’ve done,” I said; “and oh, I do feel so much better now! Do you know what a bad sick headache is?”
“No, my lad, no. I aren’t had one since—”
“Oh, father!”
“Come, Polly, don’t be hard on a man. That was only the club feast.”
“I haven’t patience with such feasts,” said Polly sharply. “I never go to feasts, and come back—”
“Poorly, my lass, poorly,” said Bob hastily.
“Yes, very poorly,” said Polly sarcastically, “and say, ‘My head’s fit to split,’ next day. Seems to me that’s all such heads are fit for then—to split and burn.”
“Nay, nay, my lass, they burn quite enough, I can tell ’ee. Man does do stoopid things sometimes.”
Bob was very apologetic about sitting down to tea, with me there. Then of course I apologised, and sat watching him drinking great draughts out of a basin and devouring huge slices of bread and butter.
“Rare stuff kettle broth, sir,” he said. “Don’t give you no headaches; do it, Polly?”
“No, father.”
“She don’t make it strong enough for that, Mr Burr, sir,” he continued, giving me a wink.
“Quite as strong as is good for you, father.”
“Right, my lass,” said Bob, helping himself to some more cream, “and not so strong as is good for you.”
I rose to go soon after, and the keeper joined with his daughter in absolutely refusing to let me pay for my meal.
“Glad to have seen you, sir; and now mind that as soon as ever your young friend Mas’ Mercer—Mas’ Bri’sh Museum, as I call him—is ready, and you can get a day, I’ll take you to our stock pond, where the carps and tenches are so thick, they’re asking to be caught. You shall have a day.”
“Good-bye, Polly,” I said, shaking hands. “You’ve quite cured my head.”
“I am so glad, sir!” she cried; and I went back to the school, Bob seeing me part of the way, and saying to me confidentially as we walked,—
“You see me leathering that poaching vagabond Magglin, sir. It’s like this. The reason for it was— No, sir. Good-night. You’re too young to talk about that sort o’ thing. Don’t forget about the fish.”
He hurried away without another word, while I went on, and found Tom Mercer looking for me, and eager to hear where I had been.
“What a shame!” he cried. “The high tea was very jolly, but I missed you. I wish I’d gone too. I say, we were licked, but it was a splendid match after all. Hallo! here’s Hodson. The chaps all went off on their ’bus cheering and— Hooray, Hodson! what a day!”
“Yes; but I say,” said the lad, “Burr major’s lost his watch.”
“His watch!” cried Mercer, giving quite a jump. “Oh!”
“Yes; he left it in his waistcoat in the tent when he stripped for his innings, and when he felt for it some time after, it was gone.”
“Then he didn’t miss it directly?” I said.
“No, not till a little while ago. A lot of the fellows are up in the field searching for it. Haven’t either of you seen it, have you?”
“No,” I said, and Mercer shook his head.
“Come on and help look for it,” cried Hodson; and we went up to the field, where the tent was still standing, it being understood that the men were to come and take it down in the morning.
“Lucky they were not here,” I said, “or some of them might have been suspected of taking it.”
“Yes, it would be ugly for them,” assented Hodson. “You see, nobody but our boys and the Hastings chaps went into the tent, except the servants to lay the tables, and of course they wouldn’t have taken it.”
“But they may have found it,” I said. “He is sure to have dropped it somewhere in the grass.”
“Of course,” cried Mercer; “and some one has put his foot on it and smashed the glass.”
“Get out, Senna! you always make the worst of every thing,” cried Hodson merrily; and soon after, we reached the field, where the boys were spread about, looking in all kinds of possible and impossible places—impossible because Burr major had never been near them after he had put on his things.
“Are you sure that you brought your watch out in the field,” said Mr Hasnip, who was one of the group standing by Burr major.
“Oh yes, sir, certain.”
“But it does not do to be too certain, my lad. Have you been up in your bedroom, and looked there?”
“No, sir, because I was so sure I brought it out.”
“Why were you so sure?”
“Because—because I thought I would wear it, as we had strangers coming.”
“Never mind, you may have altered your mind. Go and look. You see we have thoroughly searched every place where you could have been.”
“I’ll go and look, sir,” said Burr major, “but it’s of no use.”
He went off toward the schoolhouse, and Mr Rebble then coming up, the two masters began to talk about the missing watch.
“It is so awkward,” said Mr Rebble. “We can’t write and ask the party if either of them took a watch by mistake. Stop! I have it.”
“The watch?” cried Mr Hasnip eagerly.
“No. Wait till he comes back, and I think I can explain it all.”
We had not long to wait before Burr major came back to us.
“No, sir,” he said. “I’ve looked everywhere; it isn’t in my room.”
“Then I think I can help you,” said Mr Rebble. “What jacket and vest are those you have on?”
“My third best, sir.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir,” said Burr major wonderingly.
“Look at them,” continued Mr Rebble. “Are they really your own things, and not the clothes of one of our visitors taken by mistake, and he has taken yours.”
Burr major slipped off his jacket and held it up in the dusk to point out a label inside the collar, where, worked in blue silk upon white satin, was the name of the maker, his own father.
“Yes, that’s yours,” said Mr Rebble in a disappointed tone. “I thought that the mistake might have been made. But the vest—are you sure of that?”
“Oh yes,” said Burr major, who then looked inside the collar and found the same maker’s name.
“I thought that, sir,” said Burr major; “but I could feel that they were my things as soon as I put them on. I say, has any fellow taken my watch for a game?”
There was silence at first, then a murmur of, “No, no, no;” and, as it was getting too dark now to resume the search, we all trooped back to the schoolroom to sit and talk over the one event which had spoiled what would otherwise have been a most enjoyable day, for, as Tom Mercer said when we went up to bed,—
“It’s nicer for those Hastings chaps to have won. They’ve gone back jollier. By and by we shall be going over to play them, and then we shall be in the eleven, and must win.”
A pause.
“I said, ‘And then we must win.’”
“Yes, I heard you.”
“Then why didn’t you speak?”
“Because I was thinking about Burr major’s watch.”
“Oh, bother his watch!” said Mercer hastily. “I’m beginning to be glad that he has lost it. Now he won’t be always flourishing it in your face and seeming to say, ‘Poor fellow, I’m sorry you haven’t got a watch too.’”
“Well, you needn’t be so cross about it,” I said.
“Why needn’t I? One gets sick of his watch. There’s always been a fuss about it ever since he came back with it. It’s lost now, and a jolly good job too. Now we’ve heard the end of it. Old Eely’s watch is regularly wound up.”
Chapter Twenty Four.But we had not heard the end of it, for the Doctor was so much annoyed that he sent Mr Hasnip on a private diplomatic visit to his brother schoolmaster at Hastings, to speak of the trouble we were in, and to ask if it were possible that the watch had been taken by mistake.Mr Hasnip’s mission was as useless as the search made by the boys, who all stood round while the men took down the tent, so as to make sure that no strangers should be more successful than we were.But the tent was carted away, poles, flags, and all, and then we resumed our search over the space where the erection had stood, even up to the hedge, and boys were sent over it to peer about in the ditch beyond.Every minute out of school hours was devoted to the search for Burr major’s watch, but there was no result; and when Mr Hasnip returned, soon after the boys had again given up the hunt, and told the Doctor what he had done, he came away, and saw Mr Rebble, who told Burr major, and Burr major told Hodson who was the medium that conveyed to the boys generally the fact that the Doctor had shaken his head.The next day came, and the next, and another day passed, with the memories of the cricket match growing more faint. Burr major’s watch was not found, and, after the first two days, the boys had ceased to look suspiciously at one another, and charge a school-fellow with having hid the watch “for a game.” Lessons went on as usual, and my riding was kept up, but the cob was only brought over once a week.I had a pretty good time at the drilling though, but that was only in company with the other boys.Then the days grew to weeks, and we had our trip to Hastings; that is to say, our eleven; and, being free from headache this time, both Mercer and I played, all coming back in triumph, and nearly sending the private omnibus horses off at a wild gallop as we neared the school: for we came back to announce that we had beaten our adversaries in one innings, they having scored so badly that they had to follow on.This trip revived the talk about Burr major’s watch, but only for a day or two, and then once more the topic died out, though I heard incidentally from Mr Hasnip that the Doctor was bitterly grieved at such a loss taking place in his school.I worked hard in those days, and made rapid progress, I afterwards found, though I did not grasp it at the time, and I had now grown to like my school life intensely.Now and then a letter came from the General, asking leave for Mercer and me to go over to early dinner, the old gentleman welcoming us warmly, and making me give proofs of my progress in all parts of my education that had a military bearing. Then we were sent back in the dog-cart, generally with a crown a piece, and a big basket of fruit—a present, this latter, which made us very popular with the other boys, who envied our luck, as they called it, greatly, particularly our expeditions to the General’s ponds, from which we brought creels full of trophies in triumph. But only to have our pride lowered by the cook, to whom we took our prizes, that lady declaring them all to be rubbish except the eels, and those, she said, were too muddy to be worth the trouble of taking off their skins.Then, too, we had natural history excursions to make additions to the museum in the bin.I thoroughly enjoyed these trips, and became the most enthusiastic of collectors, but I regret to say that with possession my interest ceased.Mercer bullied me sharply, but it was of no good. If lizards were to be plunged in spirits and suspended by a silken thread or fine wire to the cork of the bottle, he had to do it; and though he showed me how, at least a dozen times, to skin a snake through its mouth, so as to strip off the covering whole and ready to fill up with sand, so as to preserve its shape, he never could get me to undertake the task.Certainly I began to pin out a few butterflies on cork, but I never ended them, nor became an adept at skinning and mounting quadrupeds and birds.“It’s all sheer laziness,” Mercer used to say pettishly.“Not it,” I said. “I like the birds and things best unstuffed. They look a hundred times better than when you’ve done them your way.”“But they won’t keep, stupid,” he cried.“Good thing too. I’d rather look at them for two days as they are, than for two years at your guys of things.”“What!” he cried indignantly. “Guys!”“Well, so they are,” I said. “Look at that owl; look at the squirrel, with one hind leg fat and the other lean, and his body so full that he seems to have eaten too many nuts.”“But those were some of the first stuffings,” he pleaded.“But the last are worse,” I cried, laughing. “Then look at the rabbit. Who’d ever know that was a rabbit, if it wasn’t for his ears and the colour of his skin? He looks more like a bladder made of fur.”“But he isn’t finished yet.”“Nor never will be,” I cried merrily.“Ah, you’re getting tired of natural history,” said Mercer, seating himself on the edge of the bin, and looking lovingly down at its contents, for this conversation took place up in the loft.“Wrong!” I cried. “I get fonder of it every day; but I’m not going to skin and stuff things to please anybody, not even you.”“I’m sorry for you,” said Mercer. “You’re going to be a soldier. My father says I’m to be a doctor. You’re going to destroy, and I’m going to preserve.”I burst out laughing.“I say, Tom,” I cried, as he looked up at me innocently, in surprise at my mirth, and I went and sat at the other end of the bin; “had one better kill poor people out of their misery than preserve them to look like that?” and I pointed down at the half-stuffed rabbit.“Go on,” he said quietly. “Scientific people always get laughed at. I don’t mind.”“More do I.”“I’ve had lots of fun out of all these things, and it’s better than racing all over a field, kicking a bag of wind about, and knocking one another down in a charge, and then playing more sacks on the mill, till a fellow’s most squeezed flat. I hate football, and so do you.”“No, you don’t,” I said; “you love a game sometimes as much as I do. What I don’t like in it is, that when I’m hurt, I always want to hit somebody.”“Yes, that is the worst of it,” he said quietly; “and since I’ve found out that I can fight, I’m ever so much readier to punch anybody’s head.”“But you don’t.”“No; I don’t, because it don’t seem fair. I don’t care, though, how you laugh. I shall go on with my natural history even when I grow a man, and have to drive round like father does, giving people stuff. It gives you something to think about.”“Yes, it gives you something to think about,” I said merrily. “I always get thinking about these.”“I say: don’t,” cried Mercer; “you’ve upset my owl on to that blackbird. I wish you wouldn’t be so fond of larking.”“All right, Tom; I won’t tease you,” I said. “It’s all right, and I’ll always go with you collecting. I never knew there were half so many things to see out of doors, till I went out with you. When shall we have a regular good walk through the General’s woods?”“Any time we can get away,” he cried, brightening up. “I’m ready.”“All right,” I said; “then we will go first chance.”“We must tell Bob Hopley we’re going, or he may hear us in the wood, and pepper us, thinking it’s old Magglin.”“What?”“He said he would, if ever he caught him there.”“Seen him lately?” I said.“No; have you?”“Not since the cricket match day, when I was going to Bob Hopley’s.”“One of the boys said he saw him hanging about, twice over, and I suppose he was trying to see me, and get a shilling out of me. I’m sure he’s had nearly a pound out of me, that I didn’t owe him. I wish I wasn’t so soft.”“So do I.”“Ah, now you’re laughing at me. Never mind, I’ve done with him now. Never a penny does he ever get out of me again.”“Till next time, Tom,” I said.“No, nor next time neither. I don’t suppose we shall see much more of him here, for Bob Hopley says that so sure as he catches him poaching, he shall speak out pretty plainly, so as to get him sent away. He says that many a time he has let him off with a good licking, sooner than get him sent to prison, for he don’t think prison’s good for young men like him.”“I suppose it isn’t,” I said thoughtfully, as I watched my companion, and saw how lovingly he arranged and rearranged his grotesque-looking creatures at the bottom and on the rough shelves of the bin that he had put up from time to time.And as I watched him, an idea entered my brain which tickled me so, that I had hard work to keep from laughing aloud, and being noticed.The idea came as he glanced at me, and moved the rabbit to the corner nearest to him—the absurd-looking object being carefully covered over, as if he was afraid I should begin joking him again about its unfinished state.All at once, moved by the impulse which had set me laughing, I leaned over and stretched out my hand toward the corner where he had placed the rabbit.“What are you going to do?” he cried excitedly, and he caught my wrist.“Only going to take out bunny, and see how he’s getting on.”“No, no, don’t.”“Why not?” I cried merrily.“Because—because I don’t want it touched.”“But I can improve it so.”“No, no: be quiet. Oh, I say, Frank, pray don’t touch it.”“Oh, all right,” I said, after a good-humoured struggle with him, in which I did not use much force, and I let him shut the bin, and sit on the lid.Dinner!For the bell began to ring, and I dashed down, to run out of the stable and across the yard, expecting that he would follow me, and running so blindly that I came right upon Dicksee, just leaving the stable door, and sent him down upon his hands and knees.“Hallo!” I shouted; “what were you doing there?—listening?”“What’s that to you?” grumbled the boy, as he rose slowly and carefully, examining his hands to see if the skin was off. “You did that on purpose.”“No, I didn’t,” I replied; “but I would have done it, if I had known you were sneaking and eavesdropping there.”“Who was sneaking and eavesdropping? What was there to listen to?” he retorted. “’Tain’t your stable. I’ve as good a right there as you have. Tom Mercer and you ain’t going to have it all to yourselves for your old slugs and snails and dead cats.”“You mind Tom Mercer doesn’t catch you,” I said. “You don’t want him to lick you again, I know.”“Yah!” he shouted, and he ran off just as my companion came down.“Who was that?” he said.“Fatty Dicksee. I told him you’d give him another dressing down if he came sneaking about here.”“And so I will,” cried Tom. “He has never forgiven me, though, for the last. I know he hates me. So does Eely hate you.”“Let ’em,” I said, as we went on.“But they’ll serve us out some day if they can.”“Dinner—dinner!” I cried. “Come on!” and we set off at a trot, for the prospect of hot roast mutton and potatoes just then was of far more consequence to me than my school-fellow’s prophecies of evil.
But we had not heard the end of it, for the Doctor was so much annoyed that he sent Mr Hasnip on a private diplomatic visit to his brother schoolmaster at Hastings, to speak of the trouble we were in, and to ask if it were possible that the watch had been taken by mistake.
Mr Hasnip’s mission was as useless as the search made by the boys, who all stood round while the men took down the tent, so as to make sure that no strangers should be more successful than we were.
But the tent was carted away, poles, flags, and all, and then we resumed our search over the space where the erection had stood, even up to the hedge, and boys were sent over it to peer about in the ditch beyond.
Every minute out of school hours was devoted to the search for Burr major’s watch, but there was no result; and when Mr Hasnip returned, soon after the boys had again given up the hunt, and told the Doctor what he had done, he came away, and saw Mr Rebble, who told Burr major, and Burr major told Hodson who was the medium that conveyed to the boys generally the fact that the Doctor had shaken his head.
The next day came, and the next, and another day passed, with the memories of the cricket match growing more faint. Burr major’s watch was not found, and, after the first two days, the boys had ceased to look suspiciously at one another, and charge a school-fellow with having hid the watch “for a game.” Lessons went on as usual, and my riding was kept up, but the cob was only brought over once a week.
I had a pretty good time at the drilling though, but that was only in company with the other boys.
Then the days grew to weeks, and we had our trip to Hastings; that is to say, our eleven; and, being free from headache this time, both Mercer and I played, all coming back in triumph, and nearly sending the private omnibus horses off at a wild gallop as we neared the school: for we came back to announce that we had beaten our adversaries in one innings, they having scored so badly that they had to follow on.
This trip revived the talk about Burr major’s watch, but only for a day or two, and then once more the topic died out, though I heard incidentally from Mr Hasnip that the Doctor was bitterly grieved at such a loss taking place in his school.
I worked hard in those days, and made rapid progress, I afterwards found, though I did not grasp it at the time, and I had now grown to like my school life intensely.
Now and then a letter came from the General, asking leave for Mercer and me to go over to early dinner, the old gentleman welcoming us warmly, and making me give proofs of my progress in all parts of my education that had a military bearing. Then we were sent back in the dog-cart, generally with a crown a piece, and a big basket of fruit—a present, this latter, which made us very popular with the other boys, who envied our luck, as they called it, greatly, particularly our expeditions to the General’s ponds, from which we brought creels full of trophies in triumph. But only to have our pride lowered by the cook, to whom we took our prizes, that lady declaring them all to be rubbish except the eels, and those, she said, were too muddy to be worth the trouble of taking off their skins.
Then, too, we had natural history excursions to make additions to the museum in the bin.
I thoroughly enjoyed these trips, and became the most enthusiastic of collectors, but I regret to say that with possession my interest ceased.
Mercer bullied me sharply, but it was of no good. If lizards were to be plunged in spirits and suspended by a silken thread or fine wire to the cork of the bottle, he had to do it; and though he showed me how, at least a dozen times, to skin a snake through its mouth, so as to strip off the covering whole and ready to fill up with sand, so as to preserve its shape, he never could get me to undertake the task.
Certainly I began to pin out a few butterflies on cork, but I never ended them, nor became an adept at skinning and mounting quadrupeds and birds.
“It’s all sheer laziness,” Mercer used to say pettishly.
“Not it,” I said. “I like the birds and things best unstuffed. They look a hundred times better than when you’ve done them your way.”
“But they won’t keep, stupid,” he cried.
“Good thing too. I’d rather look at them for two days as they are, than for two years at your guys of things.”
“What!” he cried indignantly. “Guys!”
“Well, so they are,” I said. “Look at that owl; look at the squirrel, with one hind leg fat and the other lean, and his body so full that he seems to have eaten too many nuts.”
“But those were some of the first stuffings,” he pleaded.
“But the last are worse,” I cried, laughing. “Then look at the rabbit. Who’d ever know that was a rabbit, if it wasn’t for his ears and the colour of his skin? He looks more like a bladder made of fur.”
“But he isn’t finished yet.”
“Nor never will be,” I cried merrily.
“Ah, you’re getting tired of natural history,” said Mercer, seating himself on the edge of the bin, and looking lovingly down at its contents, for this conversation took place up in the loft.
“Wrong!” I cried. “I get fonder of it every day; but I’m not going to skin and stuff things to please anybody, not even you.”
“I’m sorry for you,” said Mercer. “You’re going to be a soldier. My father says I’m to be a doctor. You’re going to destroy, and I’m going to preserve.”
I burst out laughing.
“I say, Tom,” I cried, as he looked up at me innocently, in surprise at my mirth, and I went and sat at the other end of the bin; “had one better kill poor people out of their misery than preserve them to look like that?” and I pointed down at the half-stuffed rabbit.
“Go on,” he said quietly. “Scientific people always get laughed at. I don’t mind.”
“More do I.”
“I’ve had lots of fun out of all these things, and it’s better than racing all over a field, kicking a bag of wind about, and knocking one another down in a charge, and then playing more sacks on the mill, till a fellow’s most squeezed flat. I hate football, and so do you.”
“No, you don’t,” I said; “you love a game sometimes as much as I do. What I don’t like in it is, that when I’m hurt, I always want to hit somebody.”
“Yes, that is the worst of it,” he said quietly; “and since I’ve found out that I can fight, I’m ever so much readier to punch anybody’s head.”
“But you don’t.”
“No; I don’t, because it don’t seem fair. I don’t care, though, how you laugh. I shall go on with my natural history even when I grow a man, and have to drive round like father does, giving people stuff. It gives you something to think about.”
“Yes, it gives you something to think about,” I said merrily. “I always get thinking about these.”
“I say: don’t,” cried Mercer; “you’ve upset my owl on to that blackbird. I wish you wouldn’t be so fond of larking.”
“All right, Tom; I won’t tease you,” I said. “It’s all right, and I’ll always go with you collecting. I never knew there were half so many things to see out of doors, till I went out with you. When shall we have a regular good walk through the General’s woods?”
“Any time we can get away,” he cried, brightening up. “I’m ready.”
“All right,” I said; “then we will go first chance.”
“We must tell Bob Hopley we’re going, or he may hear us in the wood, and pepper us, thinking it’s old Magglin.”
“What?”
“He said he would, if ever he caught him there.”
“Seen him lately?” I said.
“No; have you?”
“Not since the cricket match day, when I was going to Bob Hopley’s.”
“One of the boys said he saw him hanging about, twice over, and I suppose he was trying to see me, and get a shilling out of me. I’m sure he’s had nearly a pound out of me, that I didn’t owe him. I wish I wasn’t so soft.”
“So do I.”
“Ah, now you’re laughing at me. Never mind, I’ve done with him now. Never a penny does he ever get out of me again.”
“Till next time, Tom,” I said.
“No, nor next time neither. I don’t suppose we shall see much more of him here, for Bob Hopley says that so sure as he catches him poaching, he shall speak out pretty plainly, so as to get him sent away. He says that many a time he has let him off with a good licking, sooner than get him sent to prison, for he don’t think prison’s good for young men like him.”
“I suppose it isn’t,” I said thoughtfully, as I watched my companion, and saw how lovingly he arranged and rearranged his grotesque-looking creatures at the bottom and on the rough shelves of the bin that he had put up from time to time.
And as I watched him, an idea entered my brain which tickled me so, that I had hard work to keep from laughing aloud, and being noticed.
The idea came as he glanced at me, and moved the rabbit to the corner nearest to him—the absurd-looking object being carefully covered over, as if he was afraid I should begin joking him again about its unfinished state.
All at once, moved by the impulse which had set me laughing, I leaned over and stretched out my hand toward the corner where he had placed the rabbit.
“What are you going to do?” he cried excitedly, and he caught my wrist.
“Only going to take out bunny, and see how he’s getting on.”
“No, no, don’t.”
“Why not?” I cried merrily.
“Because—because I don’t want it touched.”
“But I can improve it so.”
“No, no: be quiet. Oh, I say, Frank, pray don’t touch it.”
“Oh, all right,” I said, after a good-humoured struggle with him, in which I did not use much force, and I let him shut the bin, and sit on the lid.
Dinner!
For the bell began to ring, and I dashed down, to run out of the stable and across the yard, expecting that he would follow me, and running so blindly that I came right upon Dicksee, just leaving the stable door, and sent him down upon his hands and knees.
“Hallo!” I shouted; “what were you doing there?—listening?”
“What’s that to you?” grumbled the boy, as he rose slowly and carefully, examining his hands to see if the skin was off. “You did that on purpose.”
“No, I didn’t,” I replied; “but I would have done it, if I had known you were sneaking and eavesdropping there.”
“Who was sneaking and eavesdropping? What was there to listen to?” he retorted. “’Tain’t your stable. I’ve as good a right there as you have. Tom Mercer and you ain’t going to have it all to yourselves for your old slugs and snails and dead cats.”
“You mind Tom Mercer doesn’t catch you,” I said. “You don’t want him to lick you again, I know.”
“Yah!” he shouted, and he ran off just as my companion came down.
“Who was that?” he said.
“Fatty Dicksee. I told him you’d give him another dressing down if he came sneaking about here.”
“And so I will,” cried Tom. “He has never forgiven me, though, for the last. I know he hates me. So does Eely hate you.”
“Let ’em,” I said, as we went on.
“But they’ll serve us out some day if they can.”
“Dinner—dinner!” I cried. “Come on!” and we set off at a trot, for the prospect of hot roast mutton and potatoes just then was of far more consequence to me than my school-fellow’s prophecies of evil.