Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Thirteen.Crawley is taken down Three Pegs.“Good gracious!” A large fire was burning in the grate; an easy-chair was drawn up on one side of it; over the back of an ordinary one opposite a clean shirt was warming itself, with the studs inserted in the front and the wristbands. On the bed the dress clothes were neatly laid out; the patent-leather boots stood at attention on the hearth-rug; hot water steamed from a japanned jug on the wash-hand stand; two wax candles lit up the dressing-table; two more stood on another near the fire, which had also writing materials on it. The room could not have been prepared for a duchess, because a duchess would not wear a black coat and trousers; and besides, they were certainlyhisclothes.Dressing took Crawley about ten minutes, and he had an hour for the operation. So he looked hurriedly through the play, and marked the parts allotted to Ensign Bellefleur. It did not seem very much, so he felt a little encouraged, and taking Miss Clarissa’s advice, set the book open on the table and began learning what he would have to say, while going on with his toilet. He had a really surprisingly retentive memory, and picked up a good bit even in that little time.He found Mr Gould in the drawing-room when he went down, and the old gentleman asked him after his progress in study, and what profession he intended to adopt, in a pompous and condescending way; but it was only a few sentences, for there were other gentlemen there, who came up and button-holed him seriously, and with whom he seemed to hold portentous conversation, politics, perhaps, or shares, or something of that kind. Then the ladies assembled, and the second gong boomed, and the people paired off. Crawley timidly offered his arm to Miss Clarissa, rather fearing he was doing wrong, and ought to go to someone else. But she took it all right; and he quoted from the play he had been studying:“‘Here we escape then. Come, cousin! nay, your lips were set for pearls and diamonds, and I’ll not lose the promised treasure.’”“‘Well, good counsel is a gem,’” the young lady responded smartly. “‘But, George, I fear me you’ll never carry the jewel in your ears.’ The quotation is not apt, though, for you evidently have carried my good counsel in your ears, and been learning your part already. How good of you!”Here was a chance for Crawley to say something pretty; but he could not think of what it should be till afterwards.If the ladies’ society was a little thrown away upon him he appreciated the dinner, which was by far the most luxurious meal he had ever seen in his life. Atable-d’hôteat Scarborough had hitherto been hisbeau idéalof a feed, but that was not in the race with the Gould banquet. And the champagne; on the few occasions when he had had a chance of tasting that wine, he had got all he could and wanted more. But now his only care was not to take too much of it, lest it should get into his head.“Are you studying your part?” asked his neighbour, for he had been silent for some time.“No,” he replied; “I was thinking that if your brother lives like this every day, he must find the fare rather unpalatable when he goes back to Weston.”“I believe he does,” said Miss Clarissa laughing. “At least he writes home grumbling letters enough, and we have to send him hampers of good things - Perigord pies and that. Don’t stop longer than you like,” she added as the ladies rose. “Papa will go on talking about stupid things all night.”And shortly afterwards young Gould, who had taken his sister’s place when she went, proposed that they should go to the billiard-room and knock the balls about. So they went and made a four-handed game with two of the girls. And then Miss Clarissa read over the scenes in which Crawley had to take part with her, and made him repeat what he had learned, with appropriate action. And he got partially over his shyness, and spent rather a pleasant evening, thanks, a little bit, I fancy, to a little vanity. His friend came to have a chat with him after they had gone up to their rooms, and when he left Crawley could not help thinking what a pity it was that his sister Clarissa had not been the boy and he the girl. She was such a much better sort of fellow for a friend; had more go, and was heartier. Before he finally turned in he read the part of Ensign Bellefleur over again, for he felt too much excited by the novelty of everything to sleep, if he went to bed. At last, however, reading the same words over repeatedly quieted his nerves, and he slept soundly till morning.“You are still inclined to have a try for the snipe?” asked Gould at breakfast. “It is still thawing, and the ground will be very sloshy; I hope you have got thick boots.”“Yes, and if I hadn’t I do not mind a little wet,” replied Crawley. “But I can’t find my gun anywhere.”“Oh, that is all right in the gun-room.”This was another new idea to Crawley, who previously thought that it was only ships in Her Majesty’s navy, and not houses, that had gun-rooms. They visited it presently, and Crawley found his property taken out of its case, put together, and standing side by side with others in a glass cupboard. He took it down and left the house with his companion. On the terrace they found a keeper with the dogs, and started off for the marshy ground by the river.“Put a few cartridges loose in your pocket,” said Gould. “William will carry the rest.”The low-lying lands were intersected by deep trenches, which divided them into fields just as hedges would. These were now frozen over, but the ice was melting fast, and water stood on the top. Along them walked the two gunners, William the keeper following with Scamp, the retriever, in a leash; for Scamp would hunt about and put everything up far out of range.“Look out, Crawley!” cried Gould, as a snipe flushed in front of him.He would not have known it was a snipe unless Gould had told him, as it was the first he had ever seen alive. He tried to take aim at it, shutting the left eye as if he were shooting at a target with a rifle, which caused him to twiddle his gun about as if he were letting off a squib, for the bird darted about as though on purpose to dodge him. So he pulled one trigger, and then, quite by accident, for he did not know how to find it in his flurry, the other, and I don’t suppose went within two yards of the snipe with either barrel. With a steadier flight, having now got well on the wing, it sailed within reach of Gould, who knocked it over.“Wiped your eye, old fellow!” he cried triumphantly as Scamp came back with the bird in his mouth.“Yes; I told you I was a duffer,” replied Crawley, who took note that the best way was to wait for the bird to have done his zigzagging. So he steadied himself, and the next chance he had he did wait. But not a bit could he cover the bird with that little knob of a sight, and when the smoke cleared away he saw it careering like a kite with too light a tail in the distance. Gould also missed twice, and then shot one the moment it was off the ground, before the erratic course commenced.“That looks the easiest dodge,” thought Crawley, and the next shot he had he tried it with the first barrel, missed, waited till the snipe was flying more steadily and gave it the second barrel, missed again. He got quite hot, and felt sure the keeper was laughing at him, but that official only said:“I’d put in a cartridge with bigger shot now; there’s some duck, I think, in yon bit of rushes by the river.”They did as he advised, and they walked down to the spot. In went the spaniels, and out came a fine mallard, ten yards in front of Crawley, and sailing away from him as steady as a ship. He could cover this large evenly-flying mark as easily as if it were on a perch nearly, and when he pulled trigger the duck stopped in his flight, and fell with a heavy splash in the river, into which Scamp plunged as if it were midsummer, and presently brought the duck to land. Crawley felt the elation which always accompanies the first successful shot at a bird on the wing; at any rate he had killed something, and might do well yet when the strangeness wore off.He had another chance at a duck a little while afterwards, but this time the bird flew across and not straight away from him, and as he held his gun still at the moment he got the sight on the duck and fired, of course, since the duck had not the politeness to stop too, the charge went about two yards behind it.“I beg your pardon, sir,” said William, “but if you takes aim like that you will never hit ’em; ’tain’t possible. You must forget all about your gun, and only look at the bird, and pull the trigger the moment you gets a full sight of him. The gun will follow your eye of itself, natural.”“I know I ought to keep both eyes open,” said Crawley, “but I forget.”“Well, that is best, to my thinking, though I have known some good shots too who always shut the left eye. But whether or no the chiefest thing is not to see that sight on your gun when you shoot, but only to look at the bird.”They went on to another snipe patch, and soon Crawley missed again.“Never mind, sir,” said William, “it’s a knack, snipe-shooting is, and no one can catch it without practice. I’ve seen good partridge, aye, and rabbit shots, miss ’em time after time, and I’ve knowed good snipe-shots poor at anything else too.”At last, by trying to follow the keeper’s directions, Crawley did hit a snipe as it was flushed, but it was his only one. They were much more plentiful than usual in that part, and lay like stones, so that they had plenty of shooting, and William groaned in spirit over the opportunity of sport that had been wasted on two boys. What a tip Sir Harry would have given him in his delight if he had come out with him on such a day!Thirty-five cartridges had Crawley burned when they turned homewards in the afternoon, and the result was one duck, one snipe; if he had possessed a tail, how closely it would have been tucked between his legs! He hardly dared look the animals who had those appendages in the face; how they must have despised him! Gould, who was a bad shot, had bagged five couple, and patronised him insufferably. When they got home he found a warm foot-bath ready in his room, which was a most refreshing luxury, and having made himself presentable he went down to the drawing-room, where the neighbours who were going to act in the forthcoming play were assembled at afternoon tea preparatory to the rehearsal. And presently they adjourned to the library and went through the play, a certain Mr Foljambe, to whom everybody paid implicit obedience, directing and instructing them.Crawley knew his part, and paid attention to what he was told, and the great man considered that he would do, if he could only get over a certain shy awkwardness. And indeed it was a provoking thing to Clarissa Gould, that when they went through their scenes alone together he acted in a manner that really showed great promise, but if a third person were present he was not so good, and with every additional spectator the merit of his performance diminished. There was only one scene in which he managed completely to forget himself and become the person he represented, and that was where he crosses swords with the hero, and is disarmed. He could fence a little, and did not quite like playing at getting the worst of it when it was not certain that he ought to have done so; but still, the violent action, and the clash of steel helped him to get rid of that feeling that he was making a tom-fool of himself which confused him when he had to make a lot of spoony speeches to the girl.Mr Foljambe encouraged him with the assurance that being dressed for the part would give him confidence; in a strange dress, a false moustache, and a painted face, he would not know himself in the glass, and would feel that the spectators did not entirely recognise him either. It was necessary to make the best of him, for there was no other Ensign Bellefleur available.The men of the day before had taken their departure, and were succeeded by a more lively lot, for there was to be a partridge drive and a big lunch on the morrow, and most of those who were to take part in it slept at Nugget Towers that night. So, instead of shares and companies, Mr Gould the father held forth upon agricultural prospects, the amount of game, and the immediate renewal of hunting, in consequence of the complete change in the weather.“You ought to have had a good many snipe by the way, Gould,” said one of the guests. “They are always found in those water meadows of yours at the end of a frost.”“My son and his young friend can tell you best about them,” replied Mr Gould. “I believe they have been out after them to-day.”“Ah! and what sport had you?” asked the inquirer, turning to young Gould.“Oh, I got five couple.”“And your friend?”“I only shot one,” said Crawley with an uneasy laugh.“Come, I say, Lionel,” said Clarissa Gould to her brother, “I am not going to have my cousin Bellefleur treated in this manner. You are a nice sort of host to leave your guest the worst of the shooting.”“He had as many shots as I had,” said young Gould, whose desire of self-glorification smothered any soupçon of good taste which he might have acquired, “only he missed them all.”“Indeed, yes,” said Crawley, concealing his sense of humiliation in the very best way; “why I fired two barrels at one snipe before Gould killed it for me. I am a perfect novice at all field sports.”“Ah!” observed the first inquirer, “I know I fired away a pound of lead before I touched a snipe when I first began. But what a lot of them there must have been if you killed five couple, Lionel.”“I do not think I should care for shooting if I were a man,” said Clarissa to Crawley. “But hunting, now, I should be wild about. I hunt sometimes, but only with the harriers. Mama will not let me go out with the foxhounds, and they meet so far off that I cannot fall in with them by accident, for there is no cover near here. But the harriers are to go out the day after to-morrow, if the frost does not return, and I am looking forwards to a good gallop. Are you fond of hunting?”“I know that I should be,” replied Crawley, “but I do not own a horse, and never have a chance of it.”“Oh, well, we will mount you; I think Daisy will be quite up to your weight, Sir Robert certainly would, but Daisy is the nicest to ride.”After dinner there was music, and Crawley was asked if he could sing. There was no backing out, for young Gould had bragged about his friend’s voice, which was indeed a good one though untrained. But he only sangTubal Cain,Simon the Cellarer, and one or two others of that sort, of which the music was not forthcoming. At last, however, Julia Gould, who was the pianist, foundJohn Peel, which he knew, and he found himself standing by that young lady, confused and shamefaced, trying to make his voice master a great lump there seemed to be in his throat. To make it worse the hubbub of voices ceased at the first notes, though it had swelled the louder during previous performances. All the men began marking the time with heads and hands, and when the chorus came first one and then another joined in, and it ended in a full burst of sound, just as when Crawley sung it at school. This gave him confidence, and he sang the second and remaining verses with spirit, the choruses swelling louder and louder, and when he finished there was much hand-clapping. So at last he had a gleam of success, and Lionel Gould, who had been growing a little supercilious, returned partially to his old conciliatory manner.Next day a large party sallied forth with their guns, and Crawley was placed under a high, thick hedge, and told to look out for partridges as they came over his head. Young Gould was some little distance on his left; and at about the same interval on his right Sir Harry Sykes, a neighbouring squire famous for his skill with the gun, had his station. Beaters had gone round a long way off to drive the birds towards them, and soon shots were heard to right and left; and then Crawley saw some dark specks coming towards his hedge, and prepared to raise his gun. But it was like a flash of lightning; they were over and away before he could bring his gun up. Gould had fired, indeed, though ineffectually, but Sir Harry had a brace. Three more appeared; this time Crawley fired his first barrel at them before they were within shot, and then turning round, gave them the second after they had got far out of it. More came; Gould got one, Sir Harry another; a brace, flying close together passed not directly over Crawley, but a little to his right; and Sir Harry having just fired and being unloaded, Crawley let fly at them, and by a lucky fluke they both came rushing to the ground, stone-dead.“Good shot, boy!” cried Sir Harry. He had hardly spoken before more birds came directly towards him; Crawley watched; he shot one as it came on, and immediately, without turning round, raised his gun, head, and arms, till it seemed as if he would go over backwards, and fired again with equally deadly effect.This second feat Crawley did not attempt to imitate, but a steady shot as they came on he did keep trying, and not entirely without success, for every now and then a partridge came tumbling nearly into his face. But Gould shot two to his one, and he did second worst of the party. However, it was such quick and wholesale work that individual prowess was taken little notice of. And then there was a long, hot luncheon, which some of the ladies came out to, and another drive a few miles off in the afternoon.It was all very exciting, and Crawley found the day a great deal too short; but still he would have preferred the snipe-shooting, if he could only be alone with no one to see his misses. There seemed more sport in finding your game than in having it driven up to you.When he went up to dress for dinner he found a hamper of game there, with a blank label attached, for him to put any address he liked. So he wrote his mother’s; and when it arrived she gave him most unmerited credit for skill, forethought, and trouble-taking. The Goulds certainly did things in a princely way.It rained softly all that night, clearing up about nine in the morning, when those who were going out with the harriers had been half-an-hour at breakfast—Miss Clarissa, who was one of them, taking that meal in her habit. Crawley could hardly eat for excitement. The moment the water for his tub had been brought he had jumped up, and, directly he was dressed, hurried to the stables to see the horse he was to ride.“And which is it to be?” asked Miss Clarissa.“Well, I meant to take your advice and Daisy; but the groom said she had a delicate mouth and required a light hand, which I cannot have, you know, for want of practice. And he said Sir Robert was the stronger animal and would stay better, though not so fast. So I fixed on Sir Robert.”“And he will carry you very well if you can hold him; Lionel can’t.”“What can’t I do?” asked young Gould across the table, with his mouth full of game-pie.“Hold Sir Robert.”“Why, his mouth is a bit hard, but I can sit him anyhow.”“Oh, yes, he goes easy enough.”The horses were soon brought round, and they all—a party of five—went out. Miss Clarissa, the only lady, put her foot into Mr Foljambe’s proffered hand and vaulted lightly into the saddle. Crawley could mount without awkwardness; he had learned enough for that, and he knew what length of stirrup suited him, and could trot along the road or canter over the grass without attracting attention; so all went well till they reached Marley Farm, where the meet was. But directly Sir Robert saw the hounds he got excited and wanted a gallop—a thing the frost had debarred him of for weeks. So he kicked up his heels and shook his head, and capered about in a manner very grateful to his own feelings, but most discomposing to his rider, who was first on the pommel, then on the crupper, then heeling over on the near side, then on the off—though both sides threatened to be off sides if these vagaries took a more violent form.When the hounds were turned into a field and working, Sir Robert evidently thought: “Come! I can’t be standing still all day while those dawdling dogs are bothering about after a hare; a gallop I must have!” And he began to fight for his head; and it took all Crawley’s strength—and he was a very muscular youngster—to hold him. Sir Robert did get away half across the field once and nearly demolished a hound, with twenty voices halloing to Crawley to come back, and the master using language which his godfathers and godmother never taught him, I am certain. I can only quote the mildest of his reproofs which was: “Go home to your nursery and finish your pap, you young idiot, and don’t come endangering the lives of animals a thousand times more valuable than yourself!”Poor Crawley, wild with shame and rage, managed to haul his horse round and get back to the others, when it did not improve his temper to see the broad grin on young Gould’s face.“Don’t fight with your horse, youngster,” said an old gentleman kindly. “The more you pull, the more he will pull too.”And Crawley loved that old gentleman, and would have adopted him for a father, or at least an uncle, on the spot, especially when he found his advice serviceable; for, loosing his reins when Sir Robert did stand still, and only checking him lightly when he tried to dart forward, kept him much quieter.But would they never find that hare? Yes, at last there was a whimper, and another, and then a full burst, and away went the hounds, and the field after them, and, with one final kick up of his heels, Sir Robert got into his stride. Crawley forgot anger, vexation—everything but the rapture of the moment. The life of the scene, the contagious excitement of dogs, horses, and men, the rapid motion, it was even beyond what he had imagined.So across a field to a little broken hedge, which Sir Robert took in his stride without his rider feeling it. Then sharp to the right towards a bigger fence, with a ditch beyond; nothing for a girl to crane at, but having to be jumped. Crawley, straining his eyes after the hounds, and not sitting very tight, was thrown forward when the horse rose, and, when he alighted, lost his stirrup, reeled, and came over on to mother earth; and when he rose to his feet he had the mortification to see Sir Robert careering away in great delight, and he proceeded to plod through the heavy ground after him.“Whatever made you tumble off? Sir Robert never swerved or stumbled!” cried Miss Clarissa as she swept by him. But his wounded vanity was hardly felt in the greater annoyance of being out of the hunt.But the best of harriers is that you hardly everareout of the hunt. The hare came round again; some good-natured man caught the horse and brought him back to the grateful Crawley, who remounted and soon fell in with the hounds at a check.“I say, you know,” said Mr Foljambe, “if you get another fall I shall exert my authority as theatrical manager and send you home. I cannot have my Ensign Bellefleur break his neck when the part is not doubled.”“No!” said Miss Clarissa, “not before Wednesday.”Whimper, whimper; they hit it off and away again. Another fence with hurdles in it, and a knot of rustics looking on in delight. More cautious now, Crawley stuck his knees in and leaned back, and, when Sir Robert alighted, was still on, with both feet in the stirrups, but very much on the pommel, and not in an elegant attitude at all.“Oh, look at he!” cried a boy with a turnip-chopper in one hand and a fork for dragging that root out in the other. “He be tailor.”“It’s agwyne to rai-ain, Mister Lunnoner!” added another smockfrock; “won’t yer get inside and pull the winders up?”Even the clodhoppers jeered him; and that confounded friend of his, Gould, was close beside and laughed, and would be sure to repeat what he heard. Never mind, it was glorious fun. He came off again later in the afternoon, but that was at a good big obstacle, which most of the field avoided, going round by a gate, and Sir Robert stumbled a bit on landing, which made an excuse. But this time the horse, who was not so fresh now, waited for him to get up again. He felt very stiff and sore when it was all over and they were riding home again; especially it seemed as if his lower garments were stuffed with nettles. As for his tumbles, the ground was very soft, and he had not been kicked or trodden on, so that when he had had a warm bath he was as right as ninepence, only a little stiff.Gould came to see after his welfare while he was dressing, and hoped he was not hurt, and expressed an opinion that he would learn to ride in time, and was glad they had only gone out with the jelly dogs instead of the foxhounds, or his friend and guest would not have seen anything of the run. All which was trying, coming from a fellow who had looked upon him as an oracle, and to whom he had condescended. At dinner, too, he was chaffed a little; but the hardest rider in the county, who had condescended to go out with the harriers to try a new horse, the foxhounds not meeting that day, and who was dining with Mr Gould afterwards, came to his rescue. “Never mind them, lad,” he said; “you went as straight as a die. I saw you taking everything as it came, never looking for a gap or a gate, and it is not many of them can say the same.”This was Saturday, and Crawley was glad of a day of rest when he got up next morning, he was so stiff. On Monday preparations for the private theatricals began in earnest. Dresses came down from London, and were tried on and altered; the large drawing-room was given up to the hands of workmen, who fitted up a small stage at one end of it, with sloping seats in front, that all the guests might see. Those who were to act were always going into corners and getting some one to hear them their parts, and there were rehearsals. It was all a great bore to Crawley, who would fain have spent the time in shooting or riding, of which he got but little, so exacting was Miss Clarissa; and he was to go home on the Thursday, the day after the entertainment.As the time approached, too, he felt more and more uncomfortable; he had found out from young Gould that the whole thing had been got up by his sister Clarissa, who thought herself a very good actress, and wished to show off; and he could easily see that he would not have been asked to the house at all if it had not been for his school-fellow’s talk about what a clever individual he was—able to do everything. Now, next to Sir Valentine May, no character in the comedy is so important for the display of Dorothy Budd’s (Clarissa’s) performance as Ensign Bellefleur; and the more clearly Crawley saw this, the more fervently did he wish that he was out of it. It was too late now, however, and as he got on very fairly in the rehearsals, he began to hope he should pull through somehow.On Tuesday the house was filled with company, and he was asked to give up his room and go to the top of the house, which, however, was no trouble to him. His clothes of seventeen hundred and fifteen were though, when the eventful evening came, and his wig, and the man who fitted it and daubed his face. And yet, when all the fidgeting was over, he wished that it had to begin again, that he might have a further respite.The play began, and during the first scene he stood at the side envying the cool self-possession of Captain Wingfield, who had the part of “Valentine,” and every one of whose speeches was followed by laughter from the unseen audience. When the second scene opened Miss Clarissa joined him, looking charming in her old-world dress; they were to go on in company, and he made a strenuous effort to pull himself together. But when he found himself in the full glare of the foot-lights, and looking before him saw the mass of expectant faces which rose, rank behind rank, half-way to the ceiling, his head went round, his brain became confused, and his first sentence was inaudible. “Speak up!” said Miss Clarissa in a loud whisper, and he uttered, “And have you no ambition?” in a louder key indeed, but in trembling accents, and standing more like a boy saying a lesson.The audience cannot hiss in private theatricals, but they could not help a suppressed titter, which confused Crawley still more. He forgot what he had to say, and looked appealingly to the prompter, who prompted rather too loudly. Altogether the scene was spoilt, and Clarissa furious.He did a little better in the second act, but not one quarter so well as he had in rehearsals, and was ready to punch his own head with vexation when the whole thing was over, and he had got rid of his costume and the messes on his face.He went to bed instead of to supper, and next morning at breakfast no one alluded to the performance before him. Soon afterwards he took his leave of all but Miss Clarissa, who kept out of his way, and Lionel Gould drove him to the station very sulkily, for his sister had vented her displeasure upon him. And so they said an uncomfortable good-bye, and Crawley felt much relieved when he found himself alone in the train, with the humiliations of his visit behind him. They did not do him any harm, quite the contrary; he was made of better stuff than that. Of course he felt sore at his failures, when he was used to play first fiddle. When the devil of conceit is cast out of us the throes are severe. But by the time he got home Crawley was able to laugh at his own mishaps. Perhaps Gould got the worst of it after all. “Thatfriend of yours an Admirable Crichton!” said his sister. “A fine set you must be!”

“Good gracious!” A large fire was burning in the grate; an easy-chair was drawn up on one side of it; over the back of an ordinary one opposite a clean shirt was warming itself, with the studs inserted in the front and the wristbands. On the bed the dress clothes were neatly laid out; the patent-leather boots stood at attention on the hearth-rug; hot water steamed from a japanned jug on the wash-hand stand; two wax candles lit up the dressing-table; two more stood on another near the fire, which had also writing materials on it. The room could not have been prepared for a duchess, because a duchess would not wear a black coat and trousers; and besides, they were certainlyhisclothes.

Dressing took Crawley about ten minutes, and he had an hour for the operation. So he looked hurriedly through the play, and marked the parts allotted to Ensign Bellefleur. It did not seem very much, so he felt a little encouraged, and taking Miss Clarissa’s advice, set the book open on the table and began learning what he would have to say, while going on with his toilet. He had a really surprisingly retentive memory, and picked up a good bit even in that little time.

He found Mr Gould in the drawing-room when he went down, and the old gentleman asked him after his progress in study, and what profession he intended to adopt, in a pompous and condescending way; but it was only a few sentences, for there were other gentlemen there, who came up and button-holed him seriously, and with whom he seemed to hold portentous conversation, politics, perhaps, or shares, or something of that kind. Then the ladies assembled, and the second gong boomed, and the people paired off. Crawley timidly offered his arm to Miss Clarissa, rather fearing he was doing wrong, and ought to go to someone else. But she took it all right; and he quoted from the play he had been studying:

“‘Here we escape then. Come, cousin! nay, your lips were set for pearls and diamonds, and I’ll not lose the promised treasure.’”

“‘Well, good counsel is a gem,’” the young lady responded smartly. “‘But, George, I fear me you’ll never carry the jewel in your ears.’ The quotation is not apt, though, for you evidently have carried my good counsel in your ears, and been learning your part already. How good of you!”

Here was a chance for Crawley to say something pretty; but he could not think of what it should be till afterwards.

If the ladies’ society was a little thrown away upon him he appreciated the dinner, which was by far the most luxurious meal he had ever seen in his life. Atable-d’hôteat Scarborough had hitherto been hisbeau idéalof a feed, but that was not in the race with the Gould banquet. And the champagne; on the few occasions when he had had a chance of tasting that wine, he had got all he could and wanted more. But now his only care was not to take too much of it, lest it should get into his head.

“Are you studying your part?” asked his neighbour, for he had been silent for some time.

“No,” he replied; “I was thinking that if your brother lives like this every day, he must find the fare rather unpalatable when he goes back to Weston.”

“I believe he does,” said Miss Clarissa laughing. “At least he writes home grumbling letters enough, and we have to send him hampers of good things - Perigord pies and that. Don’t stop longer than you like,” she added as the ladies rose. “Papa will go on talking about stupid things all night.”

And shortly afterwards young Gould, who had taken his sister’s place when she went, proposed that they should go to the billiard-room and knock the balls about. So they went and made a four-handed game with two of the girls. And then Miss Clarissa read over the scenes in which Crawley had to take part with her, and made him repeat what he had learned, with appropriate action. And he got partially over his shyness, and spent rather a pleasant evening, thanks, a little bit, I fancy, to a little vanity. His friend came to have a chat with him after they had gone up to their rooms, and when he left Crawley could not help thinking what a pity it was that his sister Clarissa had not been the boy and he the girl. She was such a much better sort of fellow for a friend; had more go, and was heartier. Before he finally turned in he read the part of Ensign Bellefleur over again, for he felt too much excited by the novelty of everything to sleep, if he went to bed. At last, however, reading the same words over repeatedly quieted his nerves, and he slept soundly till morning.

“You are still inclined to have a try for the snipe?” asked Gould at breakfast. “It is still thawing, and the ground will be very sloshy; I hope you have got thick boots.”

“Yes, and if I hadn’t I do not mind a little wet,” replied Crawley. “But I can’t find my gun anywhere.”

“Oh, that is all right in the gun-room.”

This was another new idea to Crawley, who previously thought that it was only ships in Her Majesty’s navy, and not houses, that had gun-rooms. They visited it presently, and Crawley found his property taken out of its case, put together, and standing side by side with others in a glass cupboard. He took it down and left the house with his companion. On the terrace they found a keeper with the dogs, and started off for the marshy ground by the river.

“Put a few cartridges loose in your pocket,” said Gould. “William will carry the rest.”

The low-lying lands were intersected by deep trenches, which divided them into fields just as hedges would. These were now frozen over, but the ice was melting fast, and water stood on the top. Along them walked the two gunners, William the keeper following with Scamp, the retriever, in a leash; for Scamp would hunt about and put everything up far out of range.

“Look out, Crawley!” cried Gould, as a snipe flushed in front of him.

He would not have known it was a snipe unless Gould had told him, as it was the first he had ever seen alive. He tried to take aim at it, shutting the left eye as if he were shooting at a target with a rifle, which caused him to twiddle his gun about as if he were letting off a squib, for the bird darted about as though on purpose to dodge him. So he pulled one trigger, and then, quite by accident, for he did not know how to find it in his flurry, the other, and I don’t suppose went within two yards of the snipe with either barrel. With a steadier flight, having now got well on the wing, it sailed within reach of Gould, who knocked it over.

“Wiped your eye, old fellow!” he cried triumphantly as Scamp came back with the bird in his mouth.

“Yes; I told you I was a duffer,” replied Crawley, who took note that the best way was to wait for the bird to have done his zigzagging. So he steadied himself, and the next chance he had he did wait. But not a bit could he cover the bird with that little knob of a sight, and when the smoke cleared away he saw it careering like a kite with too light a tail in the distance. Gould also missed twice, and then shot one the moment it was off the ground, before the erratic course commenced.

“That looks the easiest dodge,” thought Crawley, and the next shot he had he tried it with the first barrel, missed, waited till the snipe was flying more steadily and gave it the second barrel, missed again. He got quite hot, and felt sure the keeper was laughing at him, but that official only said:

“I’d put in a cartridge with bigger shot now; there’s some duck, I think, in yon bit of rushes by the river.”

They did as he advised, and they walked down to the spot. In went the spaniels, and out came a fine mallard, ten yards in front of Crawley, and sailing away from him as steady as a ship. He could cover this large evenly-flying mark as easily as if it were on a perch nearly, and when he pulled trigger the duck stopped in his flight, and fell with a heavy splash in the river, into which Scamp plunged as if it were midsummer, and presently brought the duck to land. Crawley felt the elation which always accompanies the first successful shot at a bird on the wing; at any rate he had killed something, and might do well yet when the strangeness wore off.

He had another chance at a duck a little while afterwards, but this time the bird flew across and not straight away from him, and as he held his gun still at the moment he got the sight on the duck and fired, of course, since the duck had not the politeness to stop too, the charge went about two yards behind it.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said William, “but if you takes aim like that you will never hit ’em; ’tain’t possible. You must forget all about your gun, and only look at the bird, and pull the trigger the moment you gets a full sight of him. The gun will follow your eye of itself, natural.”

“I know I ought to keep both eyes open,” said Crawley, “but I forget.”

“Well, that is best, to my thinking, though I have known some good shots too who always shut the left eye. But whether or no the chiefest thing is not to see that sight on your gun when you shoot, but only to look at the bird.”

They went on to another snipe patch, and soon Crawley missed again.

“Never mind, sir,” said William, “it’s a knack, snipe-shooting is, and no one can catch it without practice. I’ve seen good partridge, aye, and rabbit shots, miss ’em time after time, and I’ve knowed good snipe-shots poor at anything else too.”

At last, by trying to follow the keeper’s directions, Crawley did hit a snipe as it was flushed, but it was his only one. They were much more plentiful than usual in that part, and lay like stones, so that they had plenty of shooting, and William groaned in spirit over the opportunity of sport that had been wasted on two boys. What a tip Sir Harry would have given him in his delight if he had come out with him on such a day!

Thirty-five cartridges had Crawley burned when they turned homewards in the afternoon, and the result was one duck, one snipe; if he had possessed a tail, how closely it would have been tucked between his legs! He hardly dared look the animals who had those appendages in the face; how they must have despised him! Gould, who was a bad shot, had bagged five couple, and patronised him insufferably. When they got home he found a warm foot-bath ready in his room, which was a most refreshing luxury, and having made himself presentable he went down to the drawing-room, where the neighbours who were going to act in the forthcoming play were assembled at afternoon tea preparatory to the rehearsal. And presently they adjourned to the library and went through the play, a certain Mr Foljambe, to whom everybody paid implicit obedience, directing and instructing them.

Crawley knew his part, and paid attention to what he was told, and the great man considered that he would do, if he could only get over a certain shy awkwardness. And indeed it was a provoking thing to Clarissa Gould, that when they went through their scenes alone together he acted in a manner that really showed great promise, but if a third person were present he was not so good, and with every additional spectator the merit of his performance diminished. There was only one scene in which he managed completely to forget himself and become the person he represented, and that was where he crosses swords with the hero, and is disarmed. He could fence a little, and did not quite like playing at getting the worst of it when it was not certain that he ought to have done so; but still, the violent action, and the clash of steel helped him to get rid of that feeling that he was making a tom-fool of himself which confused him when he had to make a lot of spoony speeches to the girl.

Mr Foljambe encouraged him with the assurance that being dressed for the part would give him confidence; in a strange dress, a false moustache, and a painted face, he would not know himself in the glass, and would feel that the spectators did not entirely recognise him either. It was necessary to make the best of him, for there was no other Ensign Bellefleur available.

The men of the day before had taken their departure, and were succeeded by a more lively lot, for there was to be a partridge drive and a big lunch on the morrow, and most of those who were to take part in it slept at Nugget Towers that night. So, instead of shares and companies, Mr Gould the father held forth upon agricultural prospects, the amount of game, and the immediate renewal of hunting, in consequence of the complete change in the weather.

“You ought to have had a good many snipe by the way, Gould,” said one of the guests. “They are always found in those water meadows of yours at the end of a frost.”

“My son and his young friend can tell you best about them,” replied Mr Gould. “I believe they have been out after them to-day.”

“Ah! and what sport had you?” asked the inquirer, turning to young Gould.

“Oh, I got five couple.”

“And your friend?”

“I only shot one,” said Crawley with an uneasy laugh.

“Come, I say, Lionel,” said Clarissa Gould to her brother, “I am not going to have my cousin Bellefleur treated in this manner. You are a nice sort of host to leave your guest the worst of the shooting.”

“He had as many shots as I had,” said young Gould, whose desire of self-glorification smothered any soupçon of good taste which he might have acquired, “only he missed them all.”

“Indeed, yes,” said Crawley, concealing his sense of humiliation in the very best way; “why I fired two barrels at one snipe before Gould killed it for me. I am a perfect novice at all field sports.”

“Ah!” observed the first inquirer, “I know I fired away a pound of lead before I touched a snipe when I first began. But what a lot of them there must have been if you killed five couple, Lionel.”

“I do not think I should care for shooting if I were a man,” said Clarissa to Crawley. “But hunting, now, I should be wild about. I hunt sometimes, but only with the harriers. Mama will not let me go out with the foxhounds, and they meet so far off that I cannot fall in with them by accident, for there is no cover near here. But the harriers are to go out the day after to-morrow, if the frost does not return, and I am looking forwards to a good gallop. Are you fond of hunting?”

“I know that I should be,” replied Crawley, “but I do not own a horse, and never have a chance of it.”

“Oh, well, we will mount you; I think Daisy will be quite up to your weight, Sir Robert certainly would, but Daisy is the nicest to ride.”

After dinner there was music, and Crawley was asked if he could sing. There was no backing out, for young Gould had bragged about his friend’s voice, which was indeed a good one though untrained. But he only sangTubal Cain,Simon the Cellarer, and one or two others of that sort, of which the music was not forthcoming. At last, however, Julia Gould, who was the pianist, foundJohn Peel, which he knew, and he found himself standing by that young lady, confused and shamefaced, trying to make his voice master a great lump there seemed to be in his throat. To make it worse the hubbub of voices ceased at the first notes, though it had swelled the louder during previous performances. All the men began marking the time with heads and hands, and when the chorus came first one and then another joined in, and it ended in a full burst of sound, just as when Crawley sung it at school. This gave him confidence, and he sang the second and remaining verses with spirit, the choruses swelling louder and louder, and when he finished there was much hand-clapping. So at last he had a gleam of success, and Lionel Gould, who had been growing a little supercilious, returned partially to his old conciliatory manner.

Next day a large party sallied forth with their guns, and Crawley was placed under a high, thick hedge, and told to look out for partridges as they came over his head. Young Gould was some little distance on his left; and at about the same interval on his right Sir Harry Sykes, a neighbouring squire famous for his skill with the gun, had his station. Beaters had gone round a long way off to drive the birds towards them, and soon shots were heard to right and left; and then Crawley saw some dark specks coming towards his hedge, and prepared to raise his gun. But it was like a flash of lightning; they were over and away before he could bring his gun up. Gould had fired, indeed, though ineffectually, but Sir Harry had a brace. Three more appeared; this time Crawley fired his first barrel at them before they were within shot, and then turning round, gave them the second after they had got far out of it. More came; Gould got one, Sir Harry another; a brace, flying close together passed not directly over Crawley, but a little to his right; and Sir Harry having just fired and being unloaded, Crawley let fly at them, and by a lucky fluke they both came rushing to the ground, stone-dead.

“Good shot, boy!” cried Sir Harry. He had hardly spoken before more birds came directly towards him; Crawley watched; he shot one as it came on, and immediately, without turning round, raised his gun, head, and arms, till it seemed as if he would go over backwards, and fired again with equally deadly effect.

This second feat Crawley did not attempt to imitate, but a steady shot as they came on he did keep trying, and not entirely without success, for every now and then a partridge came tumbling nearly into his face. But Gould shot two to his one, and he did second worst of the party. However, it was such quick and wholesale work that individual prowess was taken little notice of. And then there was a long, hot luncheon, which some of the ladies came out to, and another drive a few miles off in the afternoon.

It was all very exciting, and Crawley found the day a great deal too short; but still he would have preferred the snipe-shooting, if he could only be alone with no one to see his misses. There seemed more sport in finding your game than in having it driven up to you.

When he went up to dress for dinner he found a hamper of game there, with a blank label attached, for him to put any address he liked. So he wrote his mother’s; and when it arrived she gave him most unmerited credit for skill, forethought, and trouble-taking. The Goulds certainly did things in a princely way.

It rained softly all that night, clearing up about nine in the morning, when those who were going out with the harriers had been half-an-hour at breakfast—Miss Clarissa, who was one of them, taking that meal in her habit. Crawley could hardly eat for excitement. The moment the water for his tub had been brought he had jumped up, and, directly he was dressed, hurried to the stables to see the horse he was to ride.

“And which is it to be?” asked Miss Clarissa.

“Well, I meant to take your advice and Daisy; but the groom said she had a delicate mouth and required a light hand, which I cannot have, you know, for want of practice. And he said Sir Robert was the stronger animal and would stay better, though not so fast. So I fixed on Sir Robert.”

“And he will carry you very well if you can hold him; Lionel can’t.”

“What can’t I do?” asked young Gould across the table, with his mouth full of game-pie.

“Hold Sir Robert.”

“Why, his mouth is a bit hard, but I can sit him anyhow.”

“Oh, yes, he goes easy enough.”

The horses were soon brought round, and they all—a party of five—went out. Miss Clarissa, the only lady, put her foot into Mr Foljambe’s proffered hand and vaulted lightly into the saddle. Crawley could mount without awkwardness; he had learned enough for that, and he knew what length of stirrup suited him, and could trot along the road or canter over the grass without attracting attention; so all went well till they reached Marley Farm, where the meet was. But directly Sir Robert saw the hounds he got excited and wanted a gallop—a thing the frost had debarred him of for weeks. So he kicked up his heels and shook his head, and capered about in a manner very grateful to his own feelings, but most discomposing to his rider, who was first on the pommel, then on the crupper, then heeling over on the near side, then on the off—though both sides threatened to be off sides if these vagaries took a more violent form.

When the hounds were turned into a field and working, Sir Robert evidently thought: “Come! I can’t be standing still all day while those dawdling dogs are bothering about after a hare; a gallop I must have!” And he began to fight for his head; and it took all Crawley’s strength—and he was a very muscular youngster—to hold him. Sir Robert did get away half across the field once and nearly demolished a hound, with twenty voices halloing to Crawley to come back, and the master using language which his godfathers and godmother never taught him, I am certain. I can only quote the mildest of his reproofs which was: “Go home to your nursery and finish your pap, you young idiot, and don’t come endangering the lives of animals a thousand times more valuable than yourself!”

Poor Crawley, wild with shame and rage, managed to haul his horse round and get back to the others, when it did not improve his temper to see the broad grin on young Gould’s face.

“Don’t fight with your horse, youngster,” said an old gentleman kindly. “The more you pull, the more he will pull too.”

And Crawley loved that old gentleman, and would have adopted him for a father, or at least an uncle, on the spot, especially when he found his advice serviceable; for, loosing his reins when Sir Robert did stand still, and only checking him lightly when he tried to dart forward, kept him much quieter.

But would they never find that hare? Yes, at last there was a whimper, and another, and then a full burst, and away went the hounds, and the field after them, and, with one final kick up of his heels, Sir Robert got into his stride. Crawley forgot anger, vexation—everything but the rapture of the moment. The life of the scene, the contagious excitement of dogs, horses, and men, the rapid motion, it was even beyond what he had imagined.

So across a field to a little broken hedge, which Sir Robert took in his stride without his rider feeling it. Then sharp to the right towards a bigger fence, with a ditch beyond; nothing for a girl to crane at, but having to be jumped. Crawley, straining his eyes after the hounds, and not sitting very tight, was thrown forward when the horse rose, and, when he alighted, lost his stirrup, reeled, and came over on to mother earth; and when he rose to his feet he had the mortification to see Sir Robert careering away in great delight, and he proceeded to plod through the heavy ground after him.

“Whatever made you tumble off? Sir Robert never swerved or stumbled!” cried Miss Clarissa as she swept by him. But his wounded vanity was hardly felt in the greater annoyance of being out of the hunt.

But the best of harriers is that you hardly everareout of the hunt. The hare came round again; some good-natured man caught the horse and brought him back to the grateful Crawley, who remounted and soon fell in with the hounds at a check.

“I say, you know,” said Mr Foljambe, “if you get another fall I shall exert my authority as theatrical manager and send you home. I cannot have my Ensign Bellefleur break his neck when the part is not doubled.”

“No!” said Miss Clarissa, “not before Wednesday.”

Whimper, whimper; they hit it off and away again. Another fence with hurdles in it, and a knot of rustics looking on in delight. More cautious now, Crawley stuck his knees in and leaned back, and, when Sir Robert alighted, was still on, with both feet in the stirrups, but very much on the pommel, and not in an elegant attitude at all.

“Oh, look at he!” cried a boy with a turnip-chopper in one hand and a fork for dragging that root out in the other. “He be tailor.”

“It’s agwyne to rai-ain, Mister Lunnoner!” added another smockfrock; “won’t yer get inside and pull the winders up?”

Even the clodhoppers jeered him; and that confounded friend of his, Gould, was close beside and laughed, and would be sure to repeat what he heard. Never mind, it was glorious fun. He came off again later in the afternoon, but that was at a good big obstacle, which most of the field avoided, going round by a gate, and Sir Robert stumbled a bit on landing, which made an excuse. But this time the horse, who was not so fresh now, waited for him to get up again. He felt very stiff and sore when it was all over and they were riding home again; especially it seemed as if his lower garments were stuffed with nettles. As for his tumbles, the ground was very soft, and he had not been kicked or trodden on, so that when he had had a warm bath he was as right as ninepence, only a little stiff.

Gould came to see after his welfare while he was dressing, and hoped he was not hurt, and expressed an opinion that he would learn to ride in time, and was glad they had only gone out with the jelly dogs instead of the foxhounds, or his friend and guest would not have seen anything of the run. All which was trying, coming from a fellow who had looked upon him as an oracle, and to whom he had condescended. At dinner, too, he was chaffed a little; but the hardest rider in the county, who had condescended to go out with the harriers to try a new horse, the foxhounds not meeting that day, and who was dining with Mr Gould afterwards, came to his rescue. “Never mind them, lad,” he said; “you went as straight as a die. I saw you taking everything as it came, never looking for a gap or a gate, and it is not many of them can say the same.”

This was Saturday, and Crawley was glad of a day of rest when he got up next morning, he was so stiff. On Monday preparations for the private theatricals began in earnest. Dresses came down from London, and were tried on and altered; the large drawing-room was given up to the hands of workmen, who fitted up a small stage at one end of it, with sloping seats in front, that all the guests might see. Those who were to act were always going into corners and getting some one to hear them their parts, and there were rehearsals. It was all a great bore to Crawley, who would fain have spent the time in shooting or riding, of which he got but little, so exacting was Miss Clarissa; and he was to go home on the Thursday, the day after the entertainment.

As the time approached, too, he felt more and more uncomfortable; he had found out from young Gould that the whole thing had been got up by his sister Clarissa, who thought herself a very good actress, and wished to show off; and he could easily see that he would not have been asked to the house at all if it had not been for his school-fellow’s talk about what a clever individual he was—able to do everything. Now, next to Sir Valentine May, no character in the comedy is so important for the display of Dorothy Budd’s (Clarissa’s) performance as Ensign Bellefleur; and the more clearly Crawley saw this, the more fervently did he wish that he was out of it. It was too late now, however, and as he got on very fairly in the rehearsals, he began to hope he should pull through somehow.

On Tuesday the house was filled with company, and he was asked to give up his room and go to the top of the house, which, however, was no trouble to him. His clothes of seventeen hundred and fifteen were though, when the eventful evening came, and his wig, and the man who fitted it and daubed his face. And yet, when all the fidgeting was over, he wished that it had to begin again, that he might have a further respite.

The play began, and during the first scene he stood at the side envying the cool self-possession of Captain Wingfield, who had the part of “Valentine,” and every one of whose speeches was followed by laughter from the unseen audience. When the second scene opened Miss Clarissa joined him, looking charming in her old-world dress; they were to go on in company, and he made a strenuous effort to pull himself together. But when he found himself in the full glare of the foot-lights, and looking before him saw the mass of expectant faces which rose, rank behind rank, half-way to the ceiling, his head went round, his brain became confused, and his first sentence was inaudible. “Speak up!” said Miss Clarissa in a loud whisper, and he uttered, “And have you no ambition?” in a louder key indeed, but in trembling accents, and standing more like a boy saying a lesson.

The audience cannot hiss in private theatricals, but they could not help a suppressed titter, which confused Crawley still more. He forgot what he had to say, and looked appealingly to the prompter, who prompted rather too loudly. Altogether the scene was spoilt, and Clarissa furious.

He did a little better in the second act, but not one quarter so well as he had in rehearsals, and was ready to punch his own head with vexation when the whole thing was over, and he had got rid of his costume and the messes on his face.

He went to bed instead of to supper, and next morning at breakfast no one alluded to the performance before him. Soon afterwards he took his leave of all but Miss Clarissa, who kept out of his way, and Lionel Gould drove him to the station very sulkily, for his sister had vented her displeasure upon him. And so they said an uncomfortable good-bye, and Crawley felt much relieved when he found himself alone in the train, with the humiliations of his visit behind him. They did not do him any harm, quite the contrary; he was made of better stuff than that. Of course he felt sore at his failures, when he was used to play first fiddle. When the devil of conceit is cast out of us the throes are severe. But by the time he got home Crawley was able to laugh at his own mishaps. Perhaps Gould got the worst of it after all. “Thatfriend of yours an Admirable Crichton!” said his sister. “A fine set you must be!”

Chapter Fourteen.The Descent of Avernus.A worse resident than Mr Wobbler the pedestrian took up his abode at Slam’s, and this was no other than his son, Josiah Slam, who had gone to London as the only field wide enough for his talents ten years before, and had only been occasionally heard of since. Now, however, he thought fit to pay his parents a visit, and did not appear to be in prosperous circumstances, though it is probable that he had money, or money’s worth, or the prospect of it, for Slam was not the man to kill the fatted calf for a prodigal son, unless he saw the way to making a good profit out of the veal, the hoofs, and the skin.Josiah was a young man of varied accomplishments, all of which were practised for the purpose of transferring other people’s cash from their pockets to his own. He called himself a sportsman, and no doubt the operation alluded to was sport, to him. Arriving about Christmas time, when holiday making was general, he gleaned a little at the game of skittles, at which many of the agriculturists round about thought they were somewhat proficient; but cunning as he was he could not go on disguising his game for ever, and so directly he saw that the yokels were growing shy of playing with him, he gave it up. The Sunday pitch-and-toss and card assemblages were also a source of profit to him. Marriner thought he could cheat, and had indeed stolen money in that way from his companions, and there was nothing Josiah Slam liked better than dealing with a weaker member of his own fraternity. He allowed Marriner to cheat him a little, and pretended not to discover it; played at being vexed; drew him on, and fleeced him of his ill-gotten gains.But it was apparent that he played too well at these amusements also, so then he showed them a game at which everybody might win, except himself. Where it was all chance, and skill could not interfere. Roulette, in short. The room in which Professor Wobbler had given his boxing lessons had a table fitted up in it, and on this table the wheel-of-fortune, with its black and red compartments, and its little ivory ball to rattle round and finally fall into one of them, was placed, with a cloth marked in compartments answering to those in the wheel for the gamblers to stake their money upon. This game proved very fascinating to the dissipated amongst the farmers’ sons round about, and to some of the farmers too, and money which ought to have gone to buy stock, or for the rent, was lost at that table. Of course some of them won occasionally, and considerable sums, for them, too; that formed the fascination of it.But the agricultural interest was depressed, and ready money not forthcoming to the extent Josiah Slam desired; so upper servants of the neighbouring gentry were admitted, under strong vows of secrecy, and more than one gamekeeper’s and huntsman’s family was short of coals and meat that winter, because the money to provide such necessaries was left on that satanic, innocent-looking table. Every night this gambling went on, and Josiah made a good deal of money by it, being prepared, however, to clear out of the neighbourhood at the first symptom of the police having caught scent of the affair.Ready money was waning and business growing slack when the Weston boys came back from the Christmas holidays, and Josiah, who knew that some of them frequented his father’s yard, saw a fine opportunity of augmenting his gains by setting his little ball rolling in the daytime for their especial benefit. The scheme was nearly stifled by its own success; on the very first occasion a boy won four pounds, and could not conceal the triumphant fact from two or three intimate friends, who each whispered it to two or three others, and the consequence was that on the next Saturday afternoon no fewer than thirty Westonians came to Slam’s yard seeking admittance. This alarmed old Slam, who saw a speedy prospect of discovery, and of that hold upon him which the authorities had long been seeking, being afforded them, to the consequent break up of his establishment. Better small safe profits which should last, he thought, than a haul, which after all must be limited to the amount of the school-boys’ pocket-money, and be shared with his son, and the stoppage of all his little sources of profit. Not to mention the prospect of legal punishment. So the thirty had to go away again grumbling, with their money in their pockets.O fortunati, si sua bona norint.But small parties of the initiated were still admitted, amongst them, of course, Saurin and his shadow, Edwards. The latter, who, as was said in a former chapter, had a peculiar fondness for games of chance, was positively infatuated with this device of young Slam’s. It interfered with his studies by day, and he dreamed of it by night, so much did it engross his thoughts. He was never easy unless staking his shillings on that table, and watching eagerly whether the little ball would drop into a red hole or a black one. Saurin did not take half the interest in it at first, the principal attraction for him lying in the illegality, and the tampering with what he had heard and read of as having been the ruin of so many thousands. And he thought what fools they must be. There were many ways in which he could well imagine anyone spending his last penny, but not over a toy like this. But one day he came away a winner of a couple of sovereigns, and there was something in seeing the shillings and half-crowns gathering into a pile before him which caused him to catch the sordid fever with which his friend was infected. Hitherto he had made his stakes carelessly, but now he took a deeper interest in the thing. Sometimes he had won a few shillings and Edwards had lost, and at other times it went the other way, but the winner’s gains were never so great as the loser’s losses, and it was evident that the difference must remain with the conductor of the game, Josiah Slam.“Why, we have been practically playing against each other for that rogue’s benefit!” exclaimed Saurin, when he made this discovery. “In future we must always stake our money the same way.” And this they did.Then Saurin had another bright idea. It was an even chance each time whether red or black won, just the same as heads or tails in tossing, so it could not go on very long being one or the other in succession. Then, supposing they staked on red, and it turned up black several times, they had only to persevere with red and increase the stake and they must win their losses back, while if it was red several times they would have a clear gain.This appeared to Edwards as a stroke of genius, and he was in a state of fever till they had an opportunity of putting it in practice. And it answered at first; but presently one colour, the wrong one, won so many times running that all their united capital went into Josiah’s bank.They looked at one another in blank dismay; there was an end to their speculations for the rest of that term, and by the next Mr Slam junior would have decamped from the paternal abode, for when the racing season commenced he flew at far higher game than the purses of rustics and school-boys.“Can’t come no more, can’t yer?” said Josiah. “I’m sorry for that, though I expect I should be a loser, for you play well and knows a thing or two, you do. But it’s the sport I care for more than the money, and I should have liked yer to have another chance. I know what I did once when I were in that fix; I just took and pawned my watch, and with the money I got on it I won back all I’d lost and more on the back of it, in a brace of shakes, and then took the ticker out again all comfortable.”“But there is no pawnbroker near here.”“No, in course not, and such a thing might not suit gents like you neither. Not but lords and markisses does it often; and if ever you really did want a pound or two very bad, for a short time, there’s my father, as goes over to Cornchester perpetually, would pop anything light and small for yer, and bring yer back the money and ticket safe enough.”The hint took; old Slam was intrusted with Edwards’ watch that evening, and shortly afterwards with Saurin’s; and later on with all the pins and rings they possessed, though these were not worth much.This may all sound accountable in Edwards, who was so weak and soft; but Saurin, though vicious, was no fool, and such excessively absurd conduct may appear to you inconsistent with his character. But that is because you do not know the rapidly enervating and at the same time fascinating mastery which gambling has on the mind of one who gives way to it. It is a sort of demoniacal possession; the kind-hearted, amiable man becomes hard and selfish, the generous man mean and grasping, the strong-minded superstitious under its influence. It may seem strange to enact laws to prevent people from risking their own money if they choose, but every civilised government has found it absolutely necessary to do so. For the losing gamester always thinks that with a little more money to risk he would certainly win all back again, and the thought maddens him so that he will not even shrink from crime to obtain it.One day when the pair were penniless, and had no more means of raising money, young Slam generously offered them a loan, only requiring them to sign a paper acknowledging the transaction. To prevent their feeling themselves placed under an obligation he delicately allowed them to sign for more than they had received a proposition which Saurin acceded to with alacrity. Edwards, though he also signed, did so with hesitation, and expressed fears about the safety of the transaction afterwards.“Pooh!” said Saurin, “the I O U is mere waste paper; we are both under age, and can snap our fingers at him if he demands payment. Besides, we will pay him back the first time we win enough.”“But supposing we don’t win enough? we have been very unlucky lately,” objected Edwards.“All the more reason why luck should change,” replied Saurin. “But suppose it does not, all the money will have gone into the fellow’s pocket, so we shall have repaid him in reality, don’t you see?”Edwards didn’t quite. If you borrow a shilling of any one to gamble with, and lose the stake and pay him with the shilling you have borrowed from him, he does not exactly get what is due to him. However, Edwards made no reply; no doubt Saurin knew best.Crawley lost a little of the estimation in which he had been held that term. It was extremely mean of Gould to gossip about his guest’s discomfitures at Nugget Towers, but the temptation to glorify himself at the other’s expense was too strong. He had plenty of pocket-money always, and rich men or rich boys are sure to have some one to listen to them with a certain amount of deference, and if Gould was not popular exactly, his hampers were.“I had Crawley to stay with me at Christmas, you know,” he said. “He’s a good fellow; pity he’s so awfully poor. He had never been in a decent house before, and was awfully astonished. He had what they call ‘the keeper’s gun,’ a ten-pound thing; our head-keeper twigged it. Good gun enough, I daresay, but not what a gentleman has for himself. But he could not use it; worst shot I ever met, by Jove! I showed him a thing or two, and he began to improve by my hints. He is not above taking hints, I will say that for him; and his riding! Why, I thought from those prints in his room that he was ever such a swell; but I don’t believe he was ever outside a horse before. Even the ploughmen laughed at him. ‘Get inside and pull up the windows!’ they called out.”And so he went on, somewhat exaggerating all Crawley’s failures, not so much out of any ill-will as for self-glorification. You may know the pastime of boring a hole through a chestnut, threading it on a string, and fighting it against other chestnuts: if you hit on a very tough chestnut, and with it broke another one, it is, or used to be the rule that your chestnut counted all the victories of the one it split in addition to its own, of which a careful account was kept. So that if a chestnut was a fiver, and it beat a tenner, it became at one leap a fifteener. In something the same way Gould had an idea he might score by Crawley, who was thought so much of for his proficiency in many things. If he himself was so much richer, such a better rider and shot, it ought to be assumed that if he took the trouble he could also beat him at cricket, football, mathematics, German, and freehand drawing. It was not very logical, and indeed he did not put the matter to himself so nakedly as that, but that was the sort of idea which influenced him nevertheless.At the same time I fear that there may have been a little spite in his feelings too; he had been a good deal snubbed by his sister Clarissa for introducing a friend who had gone far to spoil her triumph in the play she had got up with such pains and forethought, and he much regretted having ever asked him. Gould’s bragging would not have been much believed, only Crawley confirmed it. “Yes,” he said, “I went to stay with Gould’s people; very kind of them to ask me. They live in grand style; I thought I had got to Windsor Castle by mistake at first. I should have enjoyed it immensely if they had not made me act in private theatricals, which I hate, and I am afraid I came to utter grief over it. Took me out snipe-shooting; did you ever shoot at a snipe? bad bird to hit; Gould got some. I suppose one would pick up the knack of it in time. And, yes, we went out with the harriers; I had never sat a horse when he jumped anything before, and I came a couple of croppers. But it was great fun, and I did not hurt myself. Gould did not get a fall, oh no; he is used to it.”A good many were rather disgusted with Gould when he talked in the way he did, and Buller let him see it. “It’s awfully bad form to ask a fellow to your house, and then boast that he can’t do things that he never tried before, so well as you can,” he blurted out.“Oh, of course, we and know that Crawley is perfect inyoureyes,” sneered Gould.“That’s rot,” said Buller elegantly; “but I do know this, that you might have practised anything you know, shooting, riding, anything, all your life, and if Crawley had a week’s practice he would beat your head off at it; come, then, I’ll bet you what you like.”“That is impossible to prove.”“No matter, it does not need proof; every fellow with eyes in his head must see it. But that’s nothing. If you were ever so much better it would be just as mean to brag about it.”Crawley had no idea that Gould bore him any grudge, and being grateful to him for his invitation, sought to give him those opportunities of intimacy which he had evidently coveted before. But it was Gould now who drew back, somewhat to the other’s relief, for he could not bring himself to care much about him.Well, all this foolish talk of Gould’s did have a certain effect: a good many boys lost some faith in their idol, and began to suspect that its feet might be of clay. And then Crawley took to reading very hard that term, for his time for trying to get into Woolwich was approaching, and he was very anxious not to fail; and this made him less sociable, which affected his popularity. It did not interfere with his sports; he was as energetic at football as ever, and took his usual pains to make the boys pay up their subscriptions, for he was secretary and treasurer. But that was not exactly a genial duty, though everybody was glad that somebody else would take the trouble. And for the rest, he was now always working hard or playing hard.“Hulloa, Edwards!” he said one day about the middle of term, “you have been very lazy about your football lately; you promised to be good at it, you know. It’s a pity to give it up.”“But I have not,” said Edwards. “I am going in for it again now.” And he meant it; for the last penny of the loan had vanished, and he felt the need of excitement and action of some kind.“That’s right, old fellow,” said Crawley. “Of course you play for your house against ours in the match.”“I believe so.”“Come and have a game this afternoon,” said Crawley, turning back after they had parted; for the pallid and careworn face of the other struck him, and he thought very likely a little exercise and bustle was just what he wanted, but that he felt listless, as one does sometimes, when one is glad afterwards if some one else will save us the trouble of making up our minds, and start us.“No, thanks,” replied Edwards, “I can’t come to-day, I have something else I must do. But I shall practise regularly after to-day.” And he went on his way to meet Saurin, and go with him to Slam’s yard.For a crisis had arrived in their affairs which assumed a most serious aspect. It was no longer a question of obtaining the means of continuing their gambling; they had awakened from that dream, and saw what dupes they had been. And indeed the Slams, father and son, found that their little game was being talked about in the neighbourhood too freely for safety, and had abruptly discontinued it. Josiah, indeed, was about to take his departure altogether, and in announcing that intention to Saurin and Edwards, demanded immediate payment of the money he had advanced them, in consideration of which they had jointly signed an acknowledgment for five pounds. They had, indeed, kept away from the yard when their money was all gone, but Josiah Slam was not to be balked in that manner. He went over to Weston, and accosted Saurin in the street.“I cannot pay you just now; don’t speak to me here, we shall be seen,” said Saurin.“What do I care for that?” replied Josiah. “If you don’t come to me I’ll come to you.”“I will come to the yard to-morrow afternoon, only do go away now,” urged Saurin.“You had better,” said the man significantly. And so Saurin and Edwards were now on their way to the yard.“Well, gents, have you got the money?” asked Josiah Slam, who admitted them. “I hope so, for I wants to be off, and I’m only a-waiting for that.”“No,” replied Saurin, “we have not got it; it is not likely. We did not sign that paper until we had lost everything to you, and we shall not have any more till after Easter. Perhaps we may pay you then, though I don’t consider we owe you anything really. You have won it all back, and a lot more besides.”“What’s that to do with it?” cried young Slam. “You had as good a chance of winning of me, hadn’t yer?”“No, of course not,” replied Saurin. “I am not certain that we had any chance at all.”“What d’yer mean? yer—”“Oh, don’t bluster and try to bully,” said Saurin. “I’m not afraid of you.”“Oh, you’re not, ain’t yer, my game chicken? but I have got your I O U.”“Much good may it do you! Why, we are under age, and it’s of no value at all.”“And you call yerself a gentleman! Yah! But I’m not so green as yer think, my boy. Of course I knowed it warn’t a legal dokiment. But it’s proof enough for me. If you don’t pay I shall take it to yer master, and see if he won’t pay it for yer.”“Don’t be a fool; you know very well he would not.”“No, I don’t; at any rate I shall try it on.”“It would do you no good, I tell you.”“If not, it would do you two chaps harm, I know; why, you would get it pretty hot if yer master knowed yer had come here at all; and if he found you’d been playing cards on a Sunday, and roulette, and pawning yer watches and things, I’ll bet a hundred it wouldn’t make it better. Gents like you can allus get money somehow; write to yer friends; it’s only two pun ten apiece, and they won’t stick at that to get you out of such a shindy as this will be. This here’s Thursday and I’m bound to go on Monday. If you don’t bring them five pounds by then, I’ll go to your master with that ’ere I O U in my hand on Monday morning as sure as I stand here. So now you know.”And with this ultimatum the rascal dismissed them. They walked slowly along the lane leading to Weston with hearts as heavy as could be, for indeed they were at their wits’ end. If this fellow fulfilled his threat, and they had no doubt he would, it most certainly would result in expulsion for them both. To write home for more money was out of the question, for each had exhausted every conceivable excuse for doing so already, and any further application would only bring a letter to Dr Jolliffe asking the reason for all this extravagance, instead of cash, and so precipitate the calamity rather than ward it off. A less shameful peccadillo might have been confessed, but this low-lived gambling, this association with a fellow like Josiah Slam, how could it be spoken of? Impossible! Well, but what was to be done? Anything, anything to stave off the immediate peril; but what? That thought haunted each of them all day and during a sleepless night, and when they met on the following morning each looked at the other to see if he could detect any gleam of hope in his face.“Look here,” said Saurin, “there is just a chance, not a good one, but still a chance. That fellow Gould always has heaps of money, and from all these stories of Crawley’s visit to him at Christmas his people must be very rich. Now he is not a generous fellow, but he likes to show off. And if we went to him and told him all about it, and that we were dead certain to be expelled if we could not raise five pounds, do you not think he might lend it us till after Easter?”“I am afraid he won’t,” replied Edwards, “but it is worth trying.”“You see, it would be something for him to brag about afterwards,” continued Saurin. “It would make him look important and influential that he had got two fellows out of such a row, and was the only one in the school who could do it.”“It is worth trying at any rate,” said Edwards. “Ask him this afternoon.”

A worse resident than Mr Wobbler the pedestrian took up his abode at Slam’s, and this was no other than his son, Josiah Slam, who had gone to London as the only field wide enough for his talents ten years before, and had only been occasionally heard of since. Now, however, he thought fit to pay his parents a visit, and did not appear to be in prosperous circumstances, though it is probable that he had money, or money’s worth, or the prospect of it, for Slam was not the man to kill the fatted calf for a prodigal son, unless he saw the way to making a good profit out of the veal, the hoofs, and the skin.

Josiah was a young man of varied accomplishments, all of which were practised for the purpose of transferring other people’s cash from their pockets to his own. He called himself a sportsman, and no doubt the operation alluded to was sport, to him. Arriving about Christmas time, when holiday making was general, he gleaned a little at the game of skittles, at which many of the agriculturists round about thought they were somewhat proficient; but cunning as he was he could not go on disguising his game for ever, and so directly he saw that the yokels were growing shy of playing with him, he gave it up. The Sunday pitch-and-toss and card assemblages were also a source of profit to him. Marriner thought he could cheat, and had indeed stolen money in that way from his companions, and there was nothing Josiah Slam liked better than dealing with a weaker member of his own fraternity. He allowed Marriner to cheat him a little, and pretended not to discover it; played at being vexed; drew him on, and fleeced him of his ill-gotten gains.

But it was apparent that he played too well at these amusements also, so then he showed them a game at which everybody might win, except himself. Where it was all chance, and skill could not interfere. Roulette, in short. The room in which Professor Wobbler had given his boxing lessons had a table fitted up in it, and on this table the wheel-of-fortune, with its black and red compartments, and its little ivory ball to rattle round and finally fall into one of them, was placed, with a cloth marked in compartments answering to those in the wheel for the gamblers to stake their money upon. This game proved very fascinating to the dissipated amongst the farmers’ sons round about, and to some of the farmers too, and money which ought to have gone to buy stock, or for the rent, was lost at that table. Of course some of them won occasionally, and considerable sums, for them, too; that formed the fascination of it.

But the agricultural interest was depressed, and ready money not forthcoming to the extent Josiah Slam desired; so upper servants of the neighbouring gentry were admitted, under strong vows of secrecy, and more than one gamekeeper’s and huntsman’s family was short of coals and meat that winter, because the money to provide such necessaries was left on that satanic, innocent-looking table. Every night this gambling went on, and Josiah made a good deal of money by it, being prepared, however, to clear out of the neighbourhood at the first symptom of the police having caught scent of the affair.

Ready money was waning and business growing slack when the Weston boys came back from the Christmas holidays, and Josiah, who knew that some of them frequented his father’s yard, saw a fine opportunity of augmenting his gains by setting his little ball rolling in the daytime for their especial benefit. The scheme was nearly stifled by its own success; on the very first occasion a boy won four pounds, and could not conceal the triumphant fact from two or three intimate friends, who each whispered it to two or three others, and the consequence was that on the next Saturday afternoon no fewer than thirty Westonians came to Slam’s yard seeking admittance. This alarmed old Slam, who saw a speedy prospect of discovery, and of that hold upon him which the authorities had long been seeking, being afforded them, to the consequent break up of his establishment. Better small safe profits which should last, he thought, than a haul, which after all must be limited to the amount of the school-boys’ pocket-money, and be shared with his son, and the stoppage of all his little sources of profit. Not to mention the prospect of legal punishment. So the thirty had to go away again grumbling, with their money in their pockets.O fortunati, si sua bona norint.

But small parties of the initiated were still admitted, amongst them, of course, Saurin and his shadow, Edwards. The latter, who, as was said in a former chapter, had a peculiar fondness for games of chance, was positively infatuated with this device of young Slam’s. It interfered with his studies by day, and he dreamed of it by night, so much did it engross his thoughts. He was never easy unless staking his shillings on that table, and watching eagerly whether the little ball would drop into a red hole or a black one. Saurin did not take half the interest in it at first, the principal attraction for him lying in the illegality, and the tampering with what he had heard and read of as having been the ruin of so many thousands. And he thought what fools they must be. There were many ways in which he could well imagine anyone spending his last penny, but not over a toy like this. But one day he came away a winner of a couple of sovereigns, and there was something in seeing the shillings and half-crowns gathering into a pile before him which caused him to catch the sordid fever with which his friend was infected. Hitherto he had made his stakes carelessly, but now he took a deeper interest in the thing. Sometimes he had won a few shillings and Edwards had lost, and at other times it went the other way, but the winner’s gains were never so great as the loser’s losses, and it was evident that the difference must remain with the conductor of the game, Josiah Slam.

“Why, we have been practically playing against each other for that rogue’s benefit!” exclaimed Saurin, when he made this discovery. “In future we must always stake our money the same way.” And this they did.

Then Saurin had another bright idea. It was an even chance each time whether red or black won, just the same as heads or tails in tossing, so it could not go on very long being one or the other in succession. Then, supposing they staked on red, and it turned up black several times, they had only to persevere with red and increase the stake and they must win their losses back, while if it was red several times they would have a clear gain.

This appeared to Edwards as a stroke of genius, and he was in a state of fever till they had an opportunity of putting it in practice. And it answered at first; but presently one colour, the wrong one, won so many times running that all their united capital went into Josiah’s bank.

They looked at one another in blank dismay; there was an end to their speculations for the rest of that term, and by the next Mr Slam junior would have decamped from the paternal abode, for when the racing season commenced he flew at far higher game than the purses of rustics and school-boys.

“Can’t come no more, can’t yer?” said Josiah. “I’m sorry for that, though I expect I should be a loser, for you play well and knows a thing or two, you do. But it’s the sport I care for more than the money, and I should have liked yer to have another chance. I know what I did once when I were in that fix; I just took and pawned my watch, and with the money I got on it I won back all I’d lost and more on the back of it, in a brace of shakes, and then took the ticker out again all comfortable.”

“But there is no pawnbroker near here.”

“No, in course not, and such a thing might not suit gents like you neither. Not but lords and markisses does it often; and if ever you really did want a pound or two very bad, for a short time, there’s my father, as goes over to Cornchester perpetually, would pop anything light and small for yer, and bring yer back the money and ticket safe enough.”

The hint took; old Slam was intrusted with Edwards’ watch that evening, and shortly afterwards with Saurin’s; and later on with all the pins and rings they possessed, though these were not worth much.

This may all sound accountable in Edwards, who was so weak and soft; but Saurin, though vicious, was no fool, and such excessively absurd conduct may appear to you inconsistent with his character. But that is because you do not know the rapidly enervating and at the same time fascinating mastery which gambling has on the mind of one who gives way to it. It is a sort of demoniacal possession; the kind-hearted, amiable man becomes hard and selfish, the generous man mean and grasping, the strong-minded superstitious under its influence. It may seem strange to enact laws to prevent people from risking their own money if they choose, but every civilised government has found it absolutely necessary to do so. For the losing gamester always thinks that with a little more money to risk he would certainly win all back again, and the thought maddens him so that he will not even shrink from crime to obtain it.

One day when the pair were penniless, and had no more means of raising money, young Slam generously offered them a loan, only requiring them to sign a paper acknowledging the transaction. To prevent their feeling themselves placed under an obligation he delicately allowed them to sign for more than they had received a proposition which Saurin acceded to with alacrity. Edwards, though he also signed, did so with hesitation, and expressed fears about the safety of the transaction afterwards.

“Pooh!” said Saurin, “the I O U is mere waste paper; we are both under age, and can snap our fingers at him if he demands payment. Besides, we will pay him back the first time we win enough.”

“But supposing we don’t win enough? we have been very unlucky lately,” objected Edwards.

“All the more reason why luck should change,” replied Saurin. “But suppose it does not, all the money will have gone into the fellow’s pocket, so we shall have repaid him in reality, don’t you see?”

Edwards didn’t quite. If you borrow a shilling of any one to gamble with, and lose the stake and pay him with the shilling you have borrowed from him, he does not exactly get what is due to him. However, Edwards made no reply; no doubt Saurin knew best.

Crawley lost a little of the estimation in which he had been held that term. It was extremely mean of Gould to gossip about his guest’s discomfitures at Nugget Towers, but the temptation to glorify himself at the other’s expense was too strong. He had plenty of pocket-money always, and rich men or rich boys are sure to have some one to listen to them with a certain amount of deference, and if Gould was not popular exactly, his hampers were.

“I had Crawley to stay with me at Christmas, you know,” he said. “He’s a good fellow; pity he’s so awfully poor. He had never been in a decent house before, and was awfully astonished. He had what they call ‘the keeper’s gun,’ a ten-pound thing; our head-keeper twigged it. Good gun enough, I daresay, but not what a gentleman has for himself. But he could not use it; worst shot I ever met, by Jove! I showed him a thing or two, and he began to improve by my hints. He is not above taking hints, I will say that for him; and his riding! Why, I thought from those prints in his room that he was ever such a swell; but I don’t believe he was ever outside a horse before. Even the ploughmen laughed at him. ‘Get inside and pull up the windows!’ they called out.”

And so he went on, somewhat exaggerating all Crawley’s failures, not so much out of any ill-will as for self-glorification. You may know the pastime of boring a hole through a chestnut, threading it on a string, and fighting it against other chestnuts: if you hit on a very tough chestnut, and with it broke another one, it is, or used to be the rule that your chestnut counted all the victories of the one it split in addition to its own, of which a careful account was kept. So that if a chestnut was a fiver, and it beat a tenner, it became at one leap a fifteener. In something the same way Gould had an idea he might score by Crawley, who was thought so much of for his proficiency in many things. If he himself was so much richer, such a better rider and shot, it ought to be assumed that if he took the trouble he could also beat him at cricket, football, mathematics, German, and freehand drawing. It was not very logical, and indeed he did not put the matter to himself so nakedly as that, but that was the sort of idea which influenced him nevertheless.

At the same time I fear that there may have been a little spite in his feelings too; he had been a good deal snubbed by his sister Clarissa for introducing a friend who had gone far to spoil her triumph in the play she had got up with such pains and forethought, and he much regretted having ever asked him. Gould’s bragging would not have been much believed, only Crawley confirmed it. “Yes,” he said, “I went to stay with Gould’s people; very kind of them to ask me. They live in grand style; I thought I had got to Windsor Castle by mistake at first. I should have enjoyed it immensely if they had not made me act in private theatricals, which I hate, and I am afraid I came to utter grief over it. Took me out snipe-shooting; did you ever shoot at a snipe? bad bird to hit; Gould got some. I suppose one would pick up the knack of it in time. And, yes, we went out with the harriers; I had never sat a horse when he jumped anything before, and I came a couple of croppers. But it was great fun, and I did not hurt myself. Gould did not get a fall, oh no; he is used to it.”

A good many were rather disgusted with Gould when he talked in the way he did, and Buller let him see it. “It’s awfully bad form to ask a fellow to your house, and then boast that he can’t do things that he never tried before, so well as you can,” he blurted out.

“Oh, of course, we and know that Crawley is perfect inyoureyes,” sneered Gould.

“That’s rot,” said Buller elegantly; “but I do know this, that you might have practised anything you know, shooting, riding, anything, all your life, and if Crawley had a week’s practice he would beat your head off at it; come, then, I’ll bet you what you like.”

“That is impossible to prove.”

“No matter, it does not need proof; every fellow with eyes in his head must see it. But that’s nothing. If you were ever so much better it would be just as mean to brag about it.”

Crawley had no idea that Gould bore him any grudge, and being grateful to him for his invitation, sought to give him those opportunities of intimacy which he had evidently coveted before. But it was Gould now who drew back, somewhat to the other’s relief, for he could not bring himself to care much about him.

Well, all this foolish talk of Gould’s did have a certain effect: a good many boys lost some faith in their idol, and began to suspect that its feet might be of clay. And then Crawley took to reading very hard that term, for his time for trying to get into Woolwich was approaching, and he was very anxious not to fail; and this made him less sociable, which affected his popularity. It did not interfere with his sports; he was as energetic at football as ever, and took his usual pains to make the boys pay up their subscriptions, for he was secretary and treasurer. But that was not exactly a genial duty, though everybody was glad that somebody else would take the trouble. And for the rest, he was now always working hard or playing hard.

“Hulloa, Edwards!” he said one day about the middle of term, “you have been very lazy about your football lately; you promised to be good at it, you know. It’s a pity to give it up.”

“But I have not,” said Edwards. “I am going in for it again now.” And he meant it; for the last penny of the loan had vanished, and he felt the need of excitement and action of some kind.

“That’s right, old fellow,” said Crawley. “Of course you play for your house against ours in the match.”

“I believe so.”

“Come and have a game this afternoon,” said Crawley, turning back after they had parted; for the pallid and careworn face of the other struck him, and he thought very likely a little exercise and bustle was just what he wanted, but that he felt listless, as one does sometimes, when one is glad afterwards if some one else will save us the trouble of making up our minds, and start us.

“No, thanks,” replied Edwards, “I can’t come to-day, I have something else I must do. But I shall practise regularly after to-day.” And he went on his way to meet Saurin, and go with him to Slam’s yard.

For a crisis had arrived in their affairs which assumed a most serious aspect. It was no longer a question of obtaining the means of continuing their gambling; they had awakened from that dream, and saw what dupes they had been. And indeed the Slams, father and son, found that their little game was being talked about in the neighbourhood too freely for safety, and had abruptly discontinued it. Josiah, indeed, was about to take his departure altogether, and in announcing that intention to Saurin and Edwards, demanded immediate payment of the money he had advanced them, in consideration of which they had jointly signed an acknowledgment for five pounds. They had, indeed, kept away from the yard when their money was all gone, but Josiah Slam was not to be balked in that manner. He went over to Weston, and accosted Saurin in the street.

“I cannot pay you just now; don’t speak to me here, we shall be seen,” said Saurin.

“What do I care for that?” replied Josiah. “If you don’t come to me I’ll come to you.”

“I will come to the yard to-morrow afternoon, only do go away now,” urged Saurin.

“You had better,” said the man significantly. And so Saurin and Edwards were now on their way to the yard.

“Well, gents, have you got the money?” asked Josiah Slam, who admitted them. “I hope so, for I wants to be off, and I’m only a-waiting for that.”

“No,” replied Saurin, “we have not got it; it is not likely. We did not sign that paper until we had lost everything to you, and we shall not have any more till after Easter. Perhaps we may pay you then, though I don’t consider we owe you anything really. You have won it all back, and a lot more besides.”

“What’s that to do with it?” cried young Slam. “You had as good a chance of winning of me, hadn’t yer?”

“No, of course not,” replied Saurin. “I am not certain that we had any chance at all.”

“What d’yer mean? yer—”

“Oh, don’t bluster and try to bully,” said Saurin. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Oh, you’re not, ain’t yer, my game chicken? but I have got your I O U.”

“Much good may it do you! Why, we are under age, and it’s of no value at all.”

“And you call yerself a gentleman! Yah! But I’m not so green as yer think, my boy. Of course I knowed it warn’t a legal dokiment. But it’s proof enough for me. If you don’t pay I shall take it to yer master, and see if he won’t pay it for yer.”

“Don’t be a fool; you know very well he would not.”

“No, I don’t; at any rate I shall try it on.”

“It would do you no good, I tell you.”

“If not, it would do you two chaps harm, I know; why, you would get it pretty hot if yer master knowed yer had come here at all; and if he found you’d been playing cards on a Sunday, and roulette, and pawning yer watches and things, I’ll bet a hundred it wouldn’t make it better. Gents like you can allus get money somehow; write to yer friends; it’s only two pun ten apiece, and they won’t stick at that to get you out of such a shindy as this will be. This here’s Thursday and I’m bound to go on Monday. If you don’t bring them five pounds by then, I’ll go to your master with that ’ere I O U in my hand on Monday morning as sure as I stand here. So now you know.”

And with this ultimatum the rascal dismissed them. They walked slowly along the lane leading to Weston with hearts as heavy as could be, for indeed they were at their wits’ end. If this fellow fulfilled his threat, and they had no doubt he would, it most certainly would result in expulsion for them both. To write home for more money was out of the question, for each had exhausted every conceivable excuse for doing so already, and any further application would only bring a letter to Dr Jolliffe asking the reason for all this extravagance, instead of cash, and so precipitate the calamity rather than ward it off. A less shameful peccadillo might have been confessed, but this low-lived gambling, this association with a fellow like Josiah Slam, how could it be spoken of? Impossible! Well, but what was to be done? Anything, anything to stave off the immediate peril; but what? That thought haunted each of them all day and during a sleepless night, and when they met on the following morning each looked at the other to see if he could detect any gleam of hope in his face.

“Look here,” said Saurin, “there is just a chance, not a good one, but still a chance. That fellow Gould always has heaps of money, and from all these stories of Crawley’s visit to him at Christmas his people must be very rich. Now he is not a generous fellow, but he likes to show off. And if we went to him and told him all about it, and that we were dead certain to be expelled if we could not raise five pounds, do you not think he might lend it us till after Easter?”

“I am afraid he won’t,” replied Edwards, “but it is worth trying.”

“You see, it would be something for him to brag about afterwards,” continued Saurin. “It would make him look important and influential that he had got two fellows out of such a row, and was the only one in the school who could do it.”

“It is worth trying at any rate,” said Edwards. “Ask him this afternoon.”

Back to IndexNext