Our walk was certainly not a success, in fact I was very sick of it before we reached Oxford, because I am no good at walking and cannot stride along at a steady pace. And it also involved me in what, if real diplomatists will pardon me, I will call diplomacy, in which art or craft, or whatever the right name of it may be, I am most unskilled. I was on the point of telling Fred that I knew the party of peashooters when he, being in a much happier state of mind than he had been in the morning, began to talk about Jack Ward, and to say that I was very likely right about him, and that he was sure to be a nice kind of man when one got to know him. Hearing this made me put off what I was going to say, and when I begin to postpone anything I am lost. Second thoughts with me nearly always lead to trouble, however good they may be for other people. I think I must have taken a fatherly interest in Ward, for what else it could have been which made me wish to shield him I do not know. But I had seen him stand up in the dog-cart, and I thought he had recognized me and had tried to make Langham turn back, so I determined not to tell Fred anything until I had found out what really happened. But I felt very uncomfortable, for I do hate keeping things dark, and when he went on to say that the pea-shooting people must have been unutterable bounders to go away and leave us in the lurch, I was again on the point of telling him that Ward was one of them, only he suddenly began to sing, which gave me time to think, and frightened two children who came round a corner of the road. We were quite close to Broadmoor lunatic asylum at that moment, and Fred walking along with his hat in his hand might easily have been mistaken for some one else. His mood had become most cheerful, and he said that he did not suppose Tom Harrison would ever be heard of again, and that the whole thing had been rather fun; but he added that he should like to tell the men who had been in the room above us what he thought of them. He also told me that he had never known me so quiet, and when I continued to be silent he asked me if I was well, which annoyed me, for I am often asked that question when I do not happen to be talking, and in a lurking sort of way there seems to me to be something insulting about it. I answered that I was thinking, which was quite true, but he only laughed and said I must have changed a lot lately. I was quite tired of him before we separated in the High, and he was angry because I would not go to Oriel and have tea, but I felt that the day so far had been a hopeless failure, and I wanted to see Jack Ward.
When I got back to my rooms at St. Cuthbert's my fire was nearly out and I saw two notes lying on the table, but could not find any matches to light my lamp. I felt more gloomy than ever, and I was already feeling as if I had treated Fred most unfairly. I might say that my end was all right, or I might declare that I meant well, which is another way of saying that I was a fool, and of the two I think the latter is the more correct.
Murray had borrowed my matches and I spoke severely to him without producing any effect except amusement; whether I was thinking or angry the result seemed to be always the same—laughter, silly, idiotic chuckles. I was in a very fair rage before I got my lamp to light, and I upset a large box of matches on the floor. Murray came and helped to pick them up, and he bumped my nose with his head. I felt sure that it was his fault and told him so, and he said I could jolly well pick up my own matches; so I apologized, for though my nose hurt there were a lot of matches still on the floor, and it was no use making my nose out worse than it was to spite my face.
After that I read my notes, and they were not the usual invitations to breakfast, of which I had already received enough. The first was to ask me to play for the twenty against the Rugger XV. in the Parks on the following Tuesday, and the second was from Miss Davenport to ask me to luncheon with the Warden on the same day. These notes were more or less commands, but I neither felt very keen on playing for the XX. nor on lunching with the Warden.
"I shall be glad when Tuesday is over," I said to Murray; "I have to lunch with the Warden."
"I lunched there last Tuesday," he returned.
"What was it like?"
"Like no meal I have ever been at before. Miss Davenport talked all the time and the Warden said precious little, but I was too afraid to listen to her for fear he might ask me something and I should not catch what he said. Apart from saying 'yes' and 'no' and 'please' and 'thank you,' he only spoke once, and then it was the most extraordinarily long sentence I have ever heard. It began about pork, which Miss Davenport said was more wholesome than people imagined, it went on about the Jews, and finished up with a tale about Nero. He chuckled over his tale, but I didn't see much point in it, and Miss Davenport looked as if she had heard it before."
"I know that tale, it's a chestnut; I can't remember it, but Nero behaved like a beast to a lot of Jews who came to see him in Rome. The Warden oughtn't to tell old tales and then chuckle over them; besides, Nero was a brute."
"I don't think that would make any difference to the Warden. He terrifies me; I daren't say anything because I am sure he would remember that it was a stupid thing to say. I felt as if I was a convict, and that if I spoke I should give myself away. I can tell you it was something awful, and for all I know he may have expected me to say something."
"Probably not," I replied; "I should think he hears far too many people jawing. I hope he makes me feel like a convict, and then I shall behave myself all right, but a silence at a meal gives me fits."
"Miss Davenport is never silent," Murray asserted. "If she can talk about pork, you may guess she has plenty to say. The Warden looks at her in a forgiving sort of way—as if he knows she is talking rot, but can't help herself."
"They must be a funny pair. You don't think I shall laugh, do you?" I asked.
"I didn't feel like laughing. I never thought of it in that way, but it couldn't strike you as being funny while you are there."
"I don't know," I said; "I think I had better be ill on Tuesday." But then I remembered I had got to play footer, and I chucked the card over to Murray.
"I've got to play in this thing, too. The Warden kicks you out about two, so it will be all right. You simply must go. Where have you been to this afternoon?"
"I walked to Sampford with Foster, and we had a row there with two men, not much of a row. I must go and see Ward." I jumped up, but the chapel bell began to ring, and I had to postpone seeing him.
"I am all behind with my chapels and roll-calls," I said to Murray; "this will be my twenty-first, and five weeks of the term have gone."
"I kept six chapels last week," Murray answered; "you will have to go hard to keep nineteen in three weeks."
"I mean doing it and getting up very early in the morning. I am going to reform," and I left him at the chapel door, for he, being a scholar, sat in the seats behind all of us who were commoners or exhibitioners.
After chapel, at which the Regius Professor of Divinity preached and told us that Sunday luncheon parties were very wrong, I seized Ward and bore him off to his rooms, where we found Dennison sitting by the fire with his legs stuck up on the mantelpiece. I wanted to see Ward alone, but Dennison had been at Sampford, so he did not matter much, though Ward with Dennison never seemed to be quite the same as he was without him.
Dennison twisted round in his chair, and as soon as he saw me he began to talk. "You ought to have been with us this afternoon," he said, "we had a most lovely rag. Bunny Langham took us over to Sampford in his cart, and I had a peashooter."
The loveliness of the rag was too much for him, and he had to stop his account of it so that he might laugh. I looked at Ward, and although he did not appear to be very amused, he showed no signs of knowing that Foster and I had been at Sampford.
"After lunch," Dennison went on, "I discovered some people in an arbour, the bill and coo business, and I fairly peppered them; I am no end of a shot with a peashooter."
"You missed them about a dozen times," Ward put in.
"Those were sighting shots, you must get your range, and they were about as far off as my shooter will carry; but I got them out of the place at last, and another fellow, Oxford written all over him, walked bang into them. I gave him one on the neck and then we bolted. It was a pity we couldn't stop and see what happened."
"We ought to have stopped," Ward declared and disappeared into his bedroom.
"I can tell you what happened," I said, and I lifted Dennison's legs off the mantelpiece and stood between him and the fire. I had been angry before Dennison described Foster as having Oxford written all over him, but the cheek of labelling Fred as if he was some tailor's dummy made me furious.
Dennison looked at me and then shouted for Ward. "Marten can tell us what happened after we went, come and hear it."
"Wait a second. I am going to dine with Bunny at the Sceptre and am changing."
In a minute he appeared and went on dressing.
"I think you are the meanest lot of brutes unhung," I began, for I had been given time to think of something which would make Dennison see at once that this joke was not such a good one after all. "Foster of Oriel was one of the men you bolted from, and I was the other, and the thing isn't ended yet, for they got Foster's name. You hit one woman in the eye; do you think that very funny?"
"Sheer bad luck," Dennison said, but he did not look quite as unruffled and smug as usual.
Ward stood with his tie in his hand and did not say a word. I knew already that he had wanted to go back when he saw that there was a row, and since he had neither recognized Foster nor me my wrath was concentrated upon Dennison.
"You may call it what you like," I continued, "but if you get up a row and then haven't the pluck to see it out I call it a dirty thing to do."
I thought that must be enough to rouse Dennison, but he actually smiled at me and told me to go on.
"What do you think?" I asked Ward.
"Of course I did not recognize you and Foster, but when I saw those people had buttoned on to the wrong man I said we ought to go back. I wish that we had gone back," he answered.
"What did they do?" Dennison inquired.
"They found out Foster's name, and one of them, an awful man called Tom Harrison, says he is going to get compensation from him because you hit Susan in the eye with a pea and hadn't the decency to stay there and own up to it. There's the dinner bell, and I'm about sick of you fellows."
"I hit Susan in the eye," Dennison said reflectively. "Was Susan Tom Harrison's inamorata?" he asked.
"Talk English and I may answer you. It doesn't matter a row of pins who Susan was as long as she has a black eye," I replied.
"It is evidently no good speaking to you until you have calmed down. You remind me of a damp squib, all fuss and no result. I am going to dinner," Dennison said, and went out of the room without looking at either Ward or myself.
"I shall do something awful to that brute before I have finished with him. He makes me mad," I said, and Ward walked across the room to me.
"I am most horribly sorry about this," he began, "and I will come back straight from the Sceptre and see you. Be in at nine o'clock."
"You didn't shoot at those people, did you?" I asked.
"No; but well, you see, Dennison is better than I am at getting in for a row, and I am better at getting out of it."
"He's a low-down hound," I asserted, and after promising to be in at nine o'clock I seized my gown and went away. As I went into the hall I met Collier, and during dinner I expressed my opinion of Dennison very freely. There are times at Oxford when you regret most tremendously that you have left school, and this was one of them.
"A fellow like that would be kicked at any decent school," I said.
"He was kicked at Charbury until he managed to become a sort of blood. He played racquets very well," Collier added, as if by way of an excuse.
"Why do we put up with him?" I asked viciously, for I could see him making Lambert and Webb shout with laughter at the table opposite me.
"I don't know," Collier answered, "I suppose it's his smile. What part of a fowl do you think this is? it looks to me like the neck." He turned it over several times and then called a servant. "Please take this back, and say I have to be very careful what I eat. I keep a list, and this isn't on it. I never saw that joint before," he added to me, and lost all interest in Dennison. I thought it a pity that Collier took so much trouble over what he ate; the sight of that unusual joint made him quite silent and inattentive during the rest of the meal.
I went to his rooms after dinner, as I felt sleepy, and he never did anything on Sunday except sleep, eat, and go to chapel. His room was full of tinted literature, but I never saw him read it, and I believe he boughtThe Sporting Timeson Saturdays so that he could give it to any man who attacked him with conversation on his day of rest. His table was covered by a most miscellaneous dessert, and I asked him if he expected a lot of men.
"Not a soul," he replied, and sank into a chair by the fire. "I have this every Sunday night, because my people pay my common-room bill, and I have to pay everything else out of my allowance. They told me to do myself well, but after this term I expect they will see that this odd sort of arrangement won't work. I can feed a regiment on almonds and raisins without it costing me a sou. Help yourself to coffee, stick the dish of anchovy toast down between us, and if you want to read there are three Sunday papers and a crowd of old magazines."
I sat by the fire and read four short stories to pass the time. Dennison poked his head into the room and withdrew it when he saw me. I congratulated myself upon that little incident, for I felt that if he understood how I hated the sight of him something would have been gained. At nine o'clock I left Collier and went to my rooms to wait for Ward. I did not expect him to be punctual, because I guessed that a dinner given by Bunny Langham would be difficult to leave. He turned up, however, in about half-an-hour, and said he was jolly glad to get away from the Sceptre. "Bunny's all right," he said, "but some of his friends are too much—even for me."
I replied that Bunny was all wrong, and said why I thought so.
"You don't know him," Ward explained; "he would never leave any one in a hole if he thought for a second. He's the most good-natured, weak kind of man on earth, but he would never do the wrong thing. He goes straight over a precious difficult country, for he hasn't got any more will than a rabbit and is as blind as a bat. He will be in trouble to the end of his days, but he will never make any one ashamed of him."
I thought this was rather a glorified conception of the Bunny I knew, so I said nothing.
"You must see that he is a good sort," Ward said.
"Everybody's a good sort," I answered impatiently. "Collier calls the fellow with the green-baize apron who collects the boots a good sort, and some man I met at home, who talked about emperors and kings as if they were all his cousins, declared that the Sultan of Morocco was the best sort he had ever met—when one got to know him."
"I don't wonder you are sick," he returned. "I should be if any one had done to me what we did to you and Foster this afternoon. It looks pretty rotten on the face of it, and I am as sorry as blazes that you had to have a row with those men."
"I'm not sick about the row," I answered; "that would have been fun if they hadn't got Foster's name."
Ward lay back in his chair, and tried to blow rings of smoke from his cigarette.
"Then you are just angry because you think we ought to have come back," he said.
"No, I'm not," I replied, and I felt horribly uncomfortable.
He looked most thoroughly puzzled. "What on earth do you mean?" he asked.
I got up and walked about the room before I spoke. "It's this way," I began. "I wanted you and Foster to like each other, because he is the greatest friend I have, and I like you. And when I had been saying what a good fellow you were, you go and make a most infernal row in a pub on Sunday afternoon and then bolt. I saw you in that confounded cart, and I ought to have told Foster that I knew you were the fellow who bolted. But I didn't."
Ward sat staring in front of him, and did not speak for some time. "I don't think I could ever be friends with Foster," he said at last; "he hated me at sight; but it is deucedly good of you all the same. I will write him a note and tell him I was the man. I was going to do that, anyhow."
"You weren't the man," I asserted; "it was that little brute, Dennison."
"He doesn't count," Ward said.
I was disposed to agree with him on that point, but I thought that he and I had better go round and see Foster in the morning, instead of writing a note. He did not like this at first, but after some talking he said that he would come, and on the next morning we went round to Oriel. We made Foster look a most awful idiot, but that could not be helped. I know that if two men came to me simply bulging with apologies, I should look for the nearest window.
Fred hardly said anything but "All right" and "For goodness' sake don't say a word more about it," but it showed that Ward was not as bad as he thought him. I stayed behind after Ward had gone so that I might put things a little more straight, but Fred would not listen to another word. "You were in a vile temper yesterday afternoon, and now I know the cause. That's enough, so shut up. You seem to have become a kind of guardian to Ward," and then he stopped suddenly, for it struck him that he had said one of those things which funny people say, and he would never have done that on purpose. I assured him that I knew he had said it accidentally, but it stopped us talking about Ward, because, when you hate puns, it is most discomforting to make one suddenly. I made a pun once—I can still remember it, because if I had performed this feat intentionally I should have deserved all I got. What I did get was a dig in the ribs from Collier and the remark, "You are a wag," and then I had to repeat it to his three cousins, one of whom was deaf and none of whom understood it, though they all laughed. It was a Latin pun.
I am one of those people, Oliver Cromwell was another, to whom important things happened on a certain day. Tuesday was my day, I forget which his was, but it does not matter, because it is to be found in histories and almanacs. My day is not a matter of interest to anybody, but all the same I was born on a Tuesday, and things which I have had special reason to remember or regret have generally happened to me—so my mother says—on the same day. And it was on a Tuesday that I lunched with the Warden and began a curious sort of friendship with him. I suppose that I ought not to talk of a friendship between a man like the Warden, who was a mighty man of learning, and myself, but after all he gave me one of his books, and wrote in it, "To my young friend and quondam companion." "Quondam" was rather a pity, perhaps; it sounds pedantic, and the Warden was no pedant, unless he wanted to snub people.
I went to his luncheon, and, having neuralgia, said nothing until he told me that he knew Mr. Prettyman, who was one of the masters at Cliborough. If the Warden knew Prettyman I guessed that he had also heard something about me, and I thought I might as well stick up for myself as far as possible, so I said that Mr. Prettyman was the sort of man who, when you had lost a thing, always asked you where you had put it. He had on one occasion actually done this to me, and annoyed me very much. The Warden took no notice of my remark, and I was left to my neuralgia until the end of the meal. The other men who were there talked a lot; one of them said what he thought of Irving inHamlet, and another criticized the paintings of Watts; the Warden kept his opinions to himself, and at two o'clock asked us what we were going to do in the afternoon. All of us were bent on active employment, but just as I was leaving the dining-room, he called me back and asked me if I would go for a walk with him at three o'clock on the following Thursday afternoon. I was too confused to remember what I said, and I only recollect that I left his house feeling as if something very awful was going to happen. I changed to play for the XX. against the XV. in a kind of daymare, if there is a state of mind which can be so described, and I had a good deal to say to Murray, as we walked down to the Parks together, about my luck. Murray laughed all the way from St. Cuthbert's to Keble; he kept on breaking out into small cackles, which, of all the bad ways of laughing, must be the worst.
I started to play footer that afternoon without troubling to think how I should play. I could see myself marching slowly along the Woodstock road with the Warden, and however badly I played did not seem to matter much, for there was something far more awful to come. The XV. began to press at once, and I, as full-back, had plenty to do. What I did was reckless; I simply did not care what happened, and everything I tried seemed to come off. Everybody who plays games has an occasional day when things get twisted round, and it is easier to do right than wrong. Those are the days for which we live in hope, and one of mine came on that Tuesday. I knew the whole thing was a fluke, and I told Murray and Foster so after the game, but they both said that I had given Sykes of Merton, who was playing back for the XV., something to think about.
During the next day, visions of my blue floated before me, and the prospect of walking with the Warden lost its terrors, until I went round to see Fred on Thursday morning. I wanted him to give me some hints, but I am sorry so say he saw only the humorous side of my engagement, and was very exasperating when he might have been extremely useful.
When I left my rooms to walk with the Warden, I imagined that every one I met was laughing at me, and being intensely on the alert for insults, I was very displeased with the butler when he came to the door, and surveyed me. "What can you want with the Warden?" was written plainly over his face. I have never met a man who could be more gravely condescending than the Warden's butler, and I know several first-class cricketers, two headmasters, a popular novelist, and a rising politician aged twenty-four. I should have enjoyed telling that man what I thought of him, but a doorstep is a poor place for an altercation, unless it is with a cabman, and I saw the Warden advancing upon me clad in a cloak, and carrying a most useful umbrella, which must have been rolled up by himself.
The appearance of the Warden might have surprised any one, but it could have impressed nobody. You had to know that he was a Warden, and wrote books about religion and philosophy, before you could feel afraid of him. If he was a precisian in the choice of words, he certainly was not one in the matter of dress.
"I think," he said, with just a glance at me to see if I was the right man, "that we will enter the Parks by the gates opposite to Keble College; we shall be more or less interrupted by the noisy, if necessary, shouts of football players, but we shall escape the authoritative note of the bicycle bell."
There wasn't much that I could say in answer to this, so I walked down the Broad in silence, and tried in vain to keep step with my companion. Before we had reached Wadham his shuffle had got upon my nerves, and I wished furiously that he would say something to me. He seemed to have tucked his head into his neck, and to have retired into the world of contemplation. As we entered the Parks I was seized with a wild desire to run away. I had not uttered a word, and I had arrived at a state of mind which prompted me to give a terrific yell, just to see what would happen next. When I feel like that I must speak at least, so I said that it looked as if it might rain. It is not likely that I should have made such a remark if I could have thought of any other, and it had the merit of not being startling and also of being true. But if I had given the yell which I wished to give, I could not have produced a greater effect upon the Warden. I think that he had forgotten my existence, and for a moment he could not remember why I was with him. He poked his head forward, and looked at me until I regretted my effort at conversation, and was dreadfully afraid I should have to repeat it; a remark about the weather in some way or other seems to lose all its sparkle when it is repeated.
The Warden, however, had heard what I said, and when he had detached himself from whatever he was thinking about, he answered me.
"I am not one of those who pretend to any extraordinary knowledge of weather symptoms," he began, and he stood in the middle of the path, while a gardener leant on his spade and watched us; "indeed, I have often noticed that those who make the greatest pretensions of that kind are themselves most frequently mistaken. In fact, my friend Dr. Marshall, who wrote the meteorological reports forThe Timesnewspaper, was frequently himself in doubt whether or no to take out an umbrella for a walk."
I did not venture to interrupt him again for some time, and my next outbreak was quite unpremeditated. We were passing a college rugger match, and a pass which was palpably forward escaped the notice of the referee. I joined in the cry of "forward" which was raised, and the Warden stopped once more and actually smiled. On this occasion I had forgotten all about him, and my shout probably surprised him as much as me.
"I am sorry," I said to him, "but I really couldn't help it."
"There is no occasion to express or even to feel regret," he answered, and his eyes twinkled delightfully; "if youth lost its spontaneity it would at one and the same moment lose its charm. Did your cry refer to this?" He pointed with his umbrella to a scrimmage which was taking place a few yards away from us.
"Some one threw the ball forward, which he is not allowed to do," I explained, and a man was hurled into touch close to the spot where we were standing.
"The game of football which I believe bears the honoured name of Rugby appeals, or it seems to me to appeal, to the more violent of the emotions. Do you play this game, which strikes the eye of the observant, but not initiated, as the relic of an age in which brute force rather than science was the aim of the athlete?"
He walked on as he finished speaking, and I told him that I played Rugby football and liked it. "I like nearly every game," I added.
He glanced at me quickly, and after we had walked a little way he began again.
"The excellent Lord Chesterfield in hisLettersstated that it was very disagreeable to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be so; most of my young friends impress me with the fact that they have learned that maxim too well. But you on the contrary——" He waved his umbrella and did not finish the sentence.
"There is no harm in liking games," I answered; "if I did not take heaps of exercise I should never be well, or able to read."
"Heaps of exercise," he repeated, and looked oddly at me.
"I mean a fearful lot of exercise," I explained.
"You did not quote 'Mens sana in corpore sano,' for which I have to thank you, even if your use of the English language affords reasonable grounds for protest. Heaps of mud, heaps of rubbish, but not, I think, heaps of exercise."
"Heaps of money," I ventured to suggest, but he shook his head sadly.
"We were talking of athletics," he said, "which represent to me the most sweeping epidemic of the century. Do not let athletics spread their deadly, if in one sense empurpling, pall over your University life. Oxford has many gifts for those who are willing to receive them; do not, my friend, be content with the least which she can give. The maxim of Mr. Browning, that the grasp of a man should exceed his reach, if not an ennobling maxim, must not be forgotten entirely."
I walked by his side in silence, for I knew that the Warden did not often give advice to an undergraduate. His language even seemed to have become less carefully chosen, and I felt that he intended to be not only human but kind, for there was no special reason why he should talk to me unless he wished.
He did not speak again until we reached St. Cuthbert's, but when we had reached the back quadrangle he stopped, and after poking the ground with his umbrella, said—
"I would do nothing willingly to lessen your enthusiasm, you have, I believe, been endowed liberally with that most exhilarating virtue; I would only suggest to you that your enthusiasm need not of necessity be expended solely upon athletics. I hope that we shall be able to enjoy very many walks together."
I thrust out my hand, but he hesitated; I forgot that I had nearly made him shout with pain a few weeks before, but he, as far as I know, never forgot anything. He trusted me, however, and I treated him very gently.
As soon as the Warden had disappeared into his house I heard a bellow of derisive laughter at a window above me, and looking up I saw Dennison standing there; but at that moment I hated him even more than I did usually, and I walked off to see Jack Ward without even saying what I thought of him.
Jack was having a bath when I got to his rooms, and while he was dressing he told me how he had been spending the afternoon. I never knew what he might do next—he flew off at tangents so often—but I was surprised to hear how he had been employing himself.
"Perhaps you will think me a fool," he began, "but that Tom Harrison affair gave me the jumps, and I couldn't wait to see if Foster was going to be tackled. So I rode over to Sampford, and the man said that Harrison lived in a village a few miles off. I had lunch at Sampford and then went on, and, to cut it short, the whole thing is settled."
"You paid?"
"Not very much; and Tom said I was the first gentleman he had ever known come from Oxford—you must pay for a remark like that. He described us as 'bloomin' 'aughty,' and 'not enough brass to buy a moke.' Do you know that you are playing for the 'Varsity on Saturday against Blackheath? I want to go up to town, so I shall come and see you play."
I thought that he was trying to prevent me from thanking him, and I did not really believe that I was going to play until he took his oath that I was. Then we had tea, and I thanked him; for if there is one thing in the world of which I will not be baulked it is thanking people. I hate doing it so much, that it has got to be done. Jack, however, did not pretend to listen to what I said, and after I had finished we talked about Dennison; both of us were sick to death of him, but when you are always meeting a man in other people's rooms, and he won't see that you don't like him, it is not very easy to get rid of him; for when you are a fresher you can't choose your friends so easily as you can when your first year is over.
After dinner Fred came round to tell me that we were both playing against Blackheath, and as Jack came in as well, I said that I would get another man to play whist. I went to Murray, because I was most anxious that he should be friends with Jack; but I did not tell him that Jack was one of the four, or I am sure that he would not have come. I liked both Murray and Jack, and I thought that when I got them together each would see what a nice man the other was, for I was again in the mood when everything seems to be easy. But I cannot say that my efforts were successful; their politeness knocked every spark of cheeriness out of the game, and we played in dreadful silence, which may be all right for very good players, but it does not suit me in the least.
When Murray looked at his watch and said that he must be going, I felt quite relieved, and I decided then that I would stop trying to make Murray and Jack like each other, for the process was too painful and slow for me.
After he had gone I told Foster what Ward had been doing, and it was really quite funny to see how confused they were. Fred said how good it was of Ward to have taken so much bother about nothing, which was not quite what he meant, but it did very well; and Ward mumbled something in reply, which neither of us could hear. Altogether they managed it most successfully, and when Fred went away Ward said that he would see him to the lodge. I found out afterwards that he stopped me going with Fred, so that he might tell him nothing would have happened if he had not seen Tom Harrison; he was the kind of man who never tried to get more credit than he deserved, unless it was from Oxford tradesmen.
Playing against Blackheath on the Rectory field before a large crowd of people was good fun, and at the end of the game I thought that I had managed to escape without making a very pitiable exhibition of myself. But on the following Monday the sporting papers criticized me most unpleasantly. "Marten was obviously nervous, and did not seem to settle down until the game was lost." "As full-back Marten had much to learn; his tackling was good, but his kicking left much to be desired, and he seldom found touch." I turned fromThe SportsmanandSporting LifetoThe Daily Telegraph, and found that I had shown "more pluck than judgment."
I felt that Sykes of Merton must be having an enjoyable morning, and even the fact that the critics unanimously praised Foster was of little assistance to me. My chance had come, and I had not taken it; there could not have been a more miserable man in Oxford, and for a whole solid week I never cut a lecture or did anything of which even Mr. Edwardes could disapprove.
Sykes reappeared in the 'Varsity team, and Foster declared that the whole thing was a swindle; but he was more prejudiced in my favour than I was myself. The last match of the term at Oxford, and the one previous to the 'Varsity match, was against the Old Cliburians, and the O. C.s having had a disastrous season Adamson, who always played centre three-quarters with Foster, did not play, but put a man from Queen's in his place. This man, whose name was Pott, had been laid up all the term, and two or three people said it was lucky for Foster that Pott had not been able to play before. I played back for the O. C.s, and the game was enough to make any Cambridge man who saw it stand on his head with delight. The 'Varsity could do nothing right; the passing broke down time after time, and the forwards got impatient and kicked too hard. I thought Foster was the one man on the side who played decently, but five minutes before the end, when we were leading by a goal to nothing, Pott made a very good run and got a try in the corner. It seemed to me that this was the only thing he did during the whole game, and it was my fault that he got the try, for I went for him a second too late and he fell over the line, but the place-kick went crooked, and we won by a goal to a try.
Adamson, who was touch-judging, said what he thought about the 'Varsity team, and he could be the most uncomplimentary man in Europe when he liked. His temper was awful, and it did not seem to be improved by the use of expletives. This game was played on a Saturday, and on the following Wednesday week we had to play the 'Varsity match at Queen's Club. The Cambridge team was published in the papers on the Monday, but some one told me that our committee were not meeting until the Monday evening. This did not interest me much, for apart from wanting to see that Fred had got his blue, and I thought he was a certainty, I did not mind who else was chosen. Sykes had played better against the O. C.s than he had ever done before, and even Fred said that he was afraid my chance had gone for this year.
After dinner on Monday evening I was sitting in my rooms with Murray, and although it was not nine o'clock, I was wondering how soon I could go to bed, when Ward suddenly burst in, fairly bubbling over with excitement. He turned me right out of my chair, and hitting me violently on the back, said he had never been so awfully glad in all his life. My first impression was that he had been made glad by wine, and I told him to clear out if he could not behave himself, which made him catch hold of me and dance me round the room. By the time we had finished I found that Dennison, Collier, Lambert, Webb and a host of other people had come to my rooms, and at last I discovered that I had got my blue. For a moment I did not believe it, but I managed to push Ward into a corner, and told him I would never speak to him again if it was not true. Then he swore that he had seen the names of the XV. to play against Cambridge stuck up in the window of Howell's shop in the Turl, and the first name he saw was G. Marten (St. Cuthbert's), back.
"And Foster, of course?" I said.
Then Jack Ward's face fell. "No, they've gone mad," he answered; "it's that man Potts, of Queen's."
Men buzzed about congratulating me, and one part of me felt most tremendously glad, and the other part most outrageously sorry. I said a lot of things about the committee, and everybody except Ward and Murray thought I had gone mad. The college clock struck nine, and old Tom's nightly warning began to sound over the city. I seized a cap and bolted down-stairs, leaving my rooms full of astonished men. But Fred Foster was the only man I wanted to see, and by making a tremendous rush for Oriel I got there before the gates were closed. I cannot describe how I was feeling that evening, but I knew that Fred was infinitely better at footer than I was, and in my wildest moments I had never imagined that I should be put in the XV. while he was left out of it.
I found him sitting in his room alone, but directly he saw me he jumped up and began to talk.
"I came to St. Cuthbert's to congratulate you," he began.
"It is a confounded swindle," I interrupted.
"But there was such a row in your rooms that I couldn't face it."
"I have never been so sick about anything in my life," I said; and he looked so miserable that in spite of the comfortable sensation of having got my blue I meant it.
"It was a vile knock for me, but I don't mind half so much now one of us is in. Your people will be most awfully glad."
"They will think the committee are mad to leave you out and put me in. It upsets things altogether."
"Pott's in his fourth year, and I must have another shot, that's all," he said.
"You are bound to get your cricket blue," I declared.
"When a man begins to miss getting in as I have done, he very often keeps on doing it," and he mentioned the names of two or three men who, with any luck, would have played both cricket and footer against Cambridge, but were never chosen. "Don't bother about me," he went on, "but get yourself as fit as possible, and play like blazes at Queen's Club; you will be doing me a good turn if you play well, because at present they have got an idea up here that Cliborough fellows can't play footer. I heard Adamson saying so."
I expressed my opinion of Adamson and went back to college, for I ought not to have been out after nine o'clock, because my gating would not finish. But I must say that when the Subby sent for me, and I explained what had happened, he congratulated me on getting my blue, and said that under such exceptional circumstances he would excuse my forgetfulness.
For the next few days I got up and went to bed very early; I ran round the Parks before breakfast, which took me some time and was a most dreary occupation, and I kicked a ball about nearly every day. All of my people went up to town for the match, and Fred and I joined them at the Langham on the Tuesday night. My mother was dreadfully sorry for Fred, and Nina seemed to have forgotten that she was nearly grown-up, and gave herself no airs at all. I think that Fred, who forgave swindles very quickly, found some consolation in the fact that he was going to watch the match with Nina, which would have amused me had I not been so anxious about the morrow.
There cannot be a more cheerless spot in London than the Queen's Club on a foggy December afternoon, but when I arrived there and found that we had got to play in semi-darkness my nervousness almost disappeared.
After being photographed, and running about the ground to stretch our legs, we began, and for some time I should not think a full-back ever had less to do than I had. The game settled down into one long scrimmage, and apart from making a few kicks, which were neither good nor bad, I was almost a spectator, and at half-time I was, in comparison with every one else, quite disgustingly clean. We played towards the pavilion during the second half, and before ten minutes had passed I was covered with mud, if not with glory. The Cambridge three-quarters got the ball, and after a round of passing one of them got a try right behind our posts. Adamson promptly told me that it was my fault, but as a matter of fact Pott had slipped up at a critical moment and left his man unmarked, so I did not get much chance of preventing the try.
After this Cambridge pressed us hard, and I had to fall on the ball continually, which is a dismal performance until one gets warmed up to it. Pott's knee had given way, and though he stayed on the ground and limped about, the Cambridge forwards seemed to be always rushing past him and hurling me to the ground. Luck, however, was on our side, and though they were often on the point of scoring nothing really happened, and at last our forwards got the ball down to the other end of the ground. I hoped for a little peace, but the man who plays full-back and expects such a thing is an idiot. Only a few minutes were left when the Cambridge three-quarters got off again, and, Pott being useless, two men came at top speed for me. Their centre had the ball, and had only to throw it to the wing man for a try to be a certainty. The wing man was an international and about the fastest three-quarter in Scotland, so I tried a little device, which was bad football, though in this case it came off. My only chance was for the centre man to lose his head, and he lost it quite beautifully; if he had only gone on himself instead of trying to pass there was nobody to stop him, for I had made up my mind to prevent the fast man getting the ball whatever happened. I ran in between them, and the centre passed right into my hands; at the same moment the wing man slipped up, and I was going for the Cambridge line as fast as I could. No one being near me I think that I made one of the fastest runs of my life, but not having been blessed with speed I had to pass at last, and I happened to make quite a good shot, for one of our halves got the ball and ran in behind the posts. Adamson kicked the goal all right, and the game ended in a draw directly afterwards.
I don't mind saying that as I walked off the ground I should have been glad if there had been less fog; I had suffered so much after the Cambridge try, that I should have been pleased if everybody had seen the finish; but after all Fred had managed to discover what had happened, and if there had not been a fog, I expect I should not have tried to intercept that pass, for it would have looked quite awful if I had not happened to do it. All kinds of people congratulated me, and Adamson was good enough to acknowledge that I had atoned for my previous mistake; but I could not help wondering what he would have said if the Cambridge man had not happened to make such a bad pass. There was a condescension about Adamson which roused my worst passions, for of all the blues I have seen he was the only one who ever took an insane delight in himself, and unfortunately he belonged to a college which so seldom had a blue, that when they did get one they almost worshipped him.
After the game was over I went back to the Langham, for Fred and I had arranged to go to a theatre with Jack Ward; but I have only the vaguest idea of the performance I watched. I had slept badly the night before, and now that the match was over, nothing could keep me awake, so I had to be given up as hopeless, though Fred gave me an occasional dig with his elbow just to keep me from snoring. By the time the play was over I was properly awake again, and so satisfied with myself, that when I met Dennison going out of the theatre I was even glad to see him.
"Ward told me you were coming here," he said. "What are you going to do now?"
"Going home, I suppose," I answered; but I cannot say that I cared much where I went.
"Let's go to the Parma, there is sure to be a rag on there," he said to Jack, and after some discussion we walked down Shaftesbury Avenue.
I think the air of the town must have got into Dennison's head, for I had not walked far before I was in more than my usual state of rage with him. He ordered us about most abominably, and seemed to think that I was sure to lose my way unless I kept close to him. As a matter of fact, neither Fred nor I knew London well, but I resented being treated like an infant, and if Dennison only looked after us out of kindness, I did not see why he should do it at the top of his voice. I had an inexplicable feeling that it was the duty of every one to know something about London, and although I should not have recognized Piccadilly Circus when I saw it, I was quite prepared to put that down to the fog; for if Dennison had not taken so much for granted, I should never willingly have given myself away to him.
When we reached the Parma I was very thirsty, but there were so many people in the place that it was impossible to get near the bar. We were jolted about by men who, having nothing else to say, shouted "Good old Cambridge!" and "Now then, Oxford!" The pandemonium was deafening, and Jack said to me that the whole thing wasn't good enough, and unless you happened to feel like shoving into people and then pretending that you were very sorry he was quite right.
A man standing on the steps at the top of the room began to make a speech until somebody shoved him down, and his top-hat, having been knocked off, was kicked about by everybody who could get near it. Men whom I never remembered having seen before, shook me warmly by the hand and treated me as if I was their greatest friend, but none of them could get me anything to drink. This scene was subsequently described as disgraceful, but it was really very dull, and after a few more minutes spent in trying to make my voice heard in the noise, the lights were turned out. The word "Johnnys" ran round the place, and there was a big rush for the door leading into Piccadilly Circus. Fortunately I got out at once, and I found myself marching clown Piccadilly in the second row of a procession. Foster was next to me, though how he got there I cannot conceive, and Ward and Dennison were in the front row. We sang as we walked, and people cleared out of our way. I heard one man who met us say "Poor fools!" and the fellow who was with him answered "We did that kind of thing years ago, didn't we?" Outside The St. John's we came to a dead stop, and the men in front of me began arguing with an enormous man who stood at the entrance.
"No one else is to be admitted to-night," I heard the giant say.
"But it is not closing time," some one answered.
"These are my orders, gentlemen," he said, and it was really rather nice of him to address us as he did.
Ward did not say a word, but tried quite amicably to get past the giant. It was a kind of Goliath and David business anyhow, but whatever chance Ward had of getting into the restaurant ended abruptly; a bevy of policemen who seemed to drop out of the skies simply pounced upon him, and if he had been guilty of some real crime he could not have been treated more severely. It was my first experience of policemen, and unless some one had very kindly caught hold of me, my first impulse was to go for the men who had seized Ward.
"You had better keep quiet, or you will be taken to the station as well," one policeman said to me, but I went on talking until some one I did not know touched me on the arm.
"Was the man they collared a friend of yours?" he asked.
"Yes, and it is a most wretched swindle," I said.
"I don't think he did anything to speak of," Foster added.
"I was just coming out of the door as it happened," our friend said, "and I have never seen a more unfair thing in my life. If you will come to the police-station to-morrow to give evidence, I will come too. You had better go now and see if you can do anything for him."
We assured him that we would turn up the next morning, and then Foster and I made our way to the police-station. I cannot say that the Inspector, or whoever the official was who talked to us, took much notice of what we said, but we found a more sympathetic man outside the station who asked us if we wanted to bail out our friend. The official had told us that Jack Ward would be quite comfortable during the night, but when I saw another person brought in by the police we doubted this statement very much, and we discussed things with our sympathetic friend, who was a shabby-looking man when he happened to get near the light, and he gave us much advice in exchange for half-a-sovereign. I gave him the half-sovereign, though what prompted me to do so I cannot remember, but I had met so many aggressive people during that evening that a kind man appealed to me strongly. He was, I heard afterwards, a professional bailer-out, and I do not think he could have been a very good one, for although Fred and I went about with him for over an hour, and rang up various people who treated us with unvarying rudeness, in the end we had to leave Jack Ward where he was.
It was no easy matter to escape from my people in the morning, but we got to the place all right, and soon after we got there Jack Ward appeared, and was charged with creating a disturbance in Piccadilly. Policemen gave evidence, and the man who had told us that he would come and speak up for Ward turned out to be a barrister, and did not appear to be in the least afraid of the magistrate. His evidence was very different to that of the police, and I thought Jack Ward, who looked as if he had been having a dreadful time, was bound to get off.
When my turn came to kiss the book I was in a terrible state of nervousness, and the magistrate asked me my name twice, and where I lived at least three times. I am sure he must have been deaf, for I spoke plainly enough, but I thought him a most disagreeable man. After bothering me until I really felt quite unwell, he asked me how many drinks I had seen Jack Ward have, and when I answered "None," he said very angrily, "I shall not want to ask you any more questions." He might just as well have told me that he did not believe a word I said.
In the end Ward was bound over to keep the peace for a month, and the magistrate said what he thought of the disturbance which had been made. He supposed undergraduates to be a far more vicious lot than they really are, for at the very worst we were only extremely noisy and very foolish, and Jack Ward was just the victim of horribly bad luck.
I was glad to get away from the police-court, and I am not searching for such an experience as this again, but principally we were sorry for Ward, who said he had never spent such a night in his life. However he was very cheerful about it, and took the view that it might have happened to any one.
After luncheon Foster and I had to start on tour with the 'Varsity XV. in Wales, and I was exceedingly glad that Adamson had to stay in town to play for the South against the North, or Fred would not have come. On that tour I played very badly and Fred very well, which is what some people would call the irony of fate. But I must say in excuse for myself that more difficult people to get hold of than those Swansea, Newport and Cardiff three-quarters I cannot conceive, and I had no end of chances of trying to collar them. How many of those chances I took can be guessed by any one who is curious enough to look up records and see the lamentable results of those three matches.