Chapter Nineteen.

Chapter Nineteen.Felgate, the Champion of the Oppressed.It spoke well for Railsford’s growing influence with his boys that as soon as he returned to his post every sign of mutiny disappeared, and the house seemed to regain that spirit of ambition and self-reliance which had characterised the last days of the previous term. A few knotty questions, as the reader knows, were awaiting the Master of the Shell on his arrival, but he took them one at a time, and not having been involved in the previous altercations respecting them, disposed of them a great deal more easily than had been expected.Things had been coming to a climax rather rapidly between Felgate and Ainger. Not that Felgate had committed any unusual offence, or that Ainger had discovered anything new about him which he had not known before; but during the last few weeks of last term, and the opening days of the present, the two had crossed one another’s paths frequently, and with increasing friction. Ainger was one of those fellows who, when their mind is set on a thing, seem to lose sight of all but two persons—the person who can help them most and the person who can hinder them most.In the present case Ainger’s heart was set on making his house the crack house of Grandcourt. The person who could help him most was Railsford, and the person who could hinder him most was Felgate. The captain had been shy of the new Master of the Shell for a long time, and the mistrust had not been all on one side, but as last term had worn on, and a common cause had arisen in the temporary disgrace of the house, master and head prefect had felt drawn together in mutual confidence, and Railsford now, though he still did not always realise it, had no more loyal adherent than Ainger. Ainger, on his part, was quite ready to acknowledge that without Railsford the house stood a poor chance of fulfilling the ambitious project he and Barnworth had marked out for it, and he only hoped, now, that the master might not rest on the laurels of last term, but would help to carry through the still more important exploits of this.The great obstacle to whatever good was going on in Railsford’s at present was Felgate. He had nearly succeeded last term in sowing discontent among the juvenile athletes, and he had, in the most unmistakable manner, not done his best in the one competition at the sports for which he had entered. That was bad enough, and the quick-tempered Ainger wrote up a heavy score against him on those two items. But now he had begun on a new line. Although a prefect himself, he not only evinced no interest in the order of the house at a time when the prefects were specially on their mettle, but he had taken pains to undermine the discipline of the place and set his authority up in antagonism to that of his own colleagues.Felgate laid his plans deeply and cleverly. Ainger, as he knew, was popular because he had won the mile, and was upright, and meant what he said, and said what he meant. No boy of whom the same can be said could help being popular.“But,” said Felgate to himself, “there are other ways of being popular. I haven’t won the mile or anything else; I’m not particularly upright, and I shouldn’t like to assert I always either say what I mean or mean what I say. Still I can make myself pleasant to a parcel of kids when I choose; I can let them off some of their little rows, and I can help them to some better sport than all this tomfoolery about getting up a crack eleven and winning all the school prizes. Ainger won’t like it, but I fancy I can sail close enough to the wind not to give him a chance of being down on me. And as for Railsford—the snob—if he interferes, well, I can take it out of him in a way he don’t suspect. What a hypocrite the fellow must be to do a thing like that, and come here smiling and talk about making this the crack house of Grandcourt! Bah!”And the righteous soul of Felgate waxed hot within him, and he set himself to consider how, with least risk to himself, and most mischief to everyone else, he could drive a wedge into the project of his colleagues, and make to himself a party in Railsford’s. He passed in review the various rules of the house, to discover someone on which he might possibly found a grievance. For your man who sets himself to make a party must have a grievance. He fancied he had discovered just what he wanted in the time-honoured rule about compulsory cricket. Every boy was obliged to show up in the cricket-field three times a week, whether he liked it or not. There were very few boys in Railsford’s, as Felgate knew, who did not like it; but he fancied for all that he could make something out of the rule.He began by breaking it himself. He knew that no one would be particularly concerned on his account, for he was an indifferent player, and also a prefect might on a pinch excuse himself. After a week’s abstention, during which, rather to his disappointment, no notice was taken of his defection, he began to talk about it to one and another of the more studious boys of the house, boys very keen on winning the school prizes at the end of the term for which they were entered. Sherriff of the Fifth was one of these, and, much as he liked cricket, he was bemoaning one day having to turn out into the fields just when he wanted to finish a knotty problem in trigonometry.“Don’t go,” said Felgate. “Surely no one has a right to spoil your chance of a scholarship for a musty old school rule that ought to have been abolished a century ago.”“It’s not a bad rule on the whole, I fancy,” said Sherriff; “but it comes a little rough on me just now.”“My dear fellow, we’re not quite slaves here; and if it doesn’t suit you to go down on your knees to an antiquated rule of this kind, then you’re not the fellow I take you for if you do it. It hasn’t suited me often enough, and I’ve not been such a muff as to think twice about it.”“What happened to you when you didn’t turn up?”“Nothing, of course. I should have been rather glad if something had, for the sake of fighting the thing out. It’s enough to make some fellows loathe the very name of cricket, isn’t it?”“Some of the fellows who can’t play don’t like it, certainly.”“I don’t blame them. If only a few of them would stand out, they’d soon break down the system. But I’m keeping you from your work, old man; you’ll think me as bad as the rule. They say you’ll have a jolly hard fight for your exam, so you’re right to waste no time.”The result of this conservation was that Sherriff, one of the steadiest second-rate bats in the house, was absent from the practice, and a hue-and-cry was made after him. He was found working hard in his study.“I really can’t come to-day. I’m in for the exam, you know, and it’ll take me a tremendous grind to lick Redgrave.”“But,” said Stafford, who was the ambassador, “it’s all the same for all of us. If every fellow said the same, it would be all up with house cricket; and we wanted to turn out such a hot team this year, too. Come on. You’ll do your work twice as well after it; and the ground’s just in perfect condition for batting to-day.”Sherriff was not proof against this wily appeal. It had been an effort to him to break the rule. It was no effort now to decide to keep it. So he jumped into his flannels and took his beloved bat, and made a long score that morning against Wake’s bowling, and was happy. Felgate mentally abused him for his pusillanimity, but saw no reason, for all that, for not turning the incident to account. He proclaimed poor Sherriff's wrongs to a few of the other malcontents.“It’s hard lines,” said he, “that just because of this wretched rule, Sherriff is to lose his scholarship. He can’t possibly win it unless he’s able to read every moment of his time; and that our grave and reverend seniors don’t mean to allow.”“Brutal shame,” said Munger, “hounding him down like that I’ve half a mind to stick out.”“That’s what Sherriff said,” sneered Felgate, “but he had to knuckle under.”“Catch me knuckling under!” said Munger.He stayed away the next practice day, and, much to his mortification, nobody took the slightest notice of his absence.“You see,” said Felgate, “if only one or two of you stand steady, they can’t compel you to play. It’s ridiculous.”Next day, accordingly, three fellows stayed away; who, as they were the three premier louts in Railsford’s, were never missed or inquired after. But when the next day the number swelled to five, and included Simson, who at least knew one end of a bat from the other, and had once tipped a ball to leg for two, the matter was no longer to be overlooked. The captain’s attention was called to the fact that one fellow in the Fifth, three in the Shell, and one Baby, besides Felgate, were not down on the ground.“Fetch them, then,” said Ainger, “and tell them to look sharp, or they’ll catch it.”Wake was the envoy this time, and duly delivered his message to the deserters, whom, rather suspiciously, as it seemed to him, he found together.“You’d better go, you youngsters,” said. Felgate, with a sneer; “you’ll have to do it sooner or later—you’d better cave in at once.”“I’m hanged if I go,” said Munger.“I fancy that’s a safe fixture, whether you go or not,” drily observed Wake. “Look sharp, are you coming or not?”“I’m not coming, I tell you,” said Munger.“No more am I,” said Simson.“No more am I,” said each of the others.“Are you coming, Felgate?” demanded Wake.This was an irreverent question for a Fifth-form boy to ask a prefect, and Felgate naturally rebuked it.“It’s no business of yours, and you’d better not be impudent, I can tell you. As it happens, I’ve got some work to do, and can’t come. Cut away, you needn’t stay.”Wake departed cheerfully, and announced that the whole thing was a “put-up job,” as Arthur would have called it, and that Felgate was at the bottom of it. Whereupon Ainger’s face grew dark, and he walked, bat in hand, to the house. The mutineers, with the exception of Felgate, who, with the usual prudence of a professional “patriot,” had retired to his study, were loafing about the common room just where Wake had interviewed them.“What’s the meaning of all this?” demanded the captain; “what do you mean by not turning up to cricket and sending word you weren’t coming when Wake came for you?”It was much easier defying Ainger in his absence than in his presence, and now that he stood there and confronted them, the delinquents did not quite feel the hardy men of war they had been five minutes ago. Munger, however, tried to carry the thing off with a bluster.“We don’t see the fun of being compelled to go every time. We don’t care about cricket; besides—we don’t mean to go. Felgate doesn’t go; why don’t you make him?”The captain put down his bat.“Munger, go and put on your flannels at once.”“What if I don’t?” asked Munger.Ainger replied by giving him a thrashing there and then, despite his howls and protests that he had just been going, and would never do it again. The captain replied that he didn’t fancy hewoulddo it again in a hurry; and as the remainder of the company expressed positive impatience to go to the cricket-field, he let them of! with a caution, and, after seeing them started, walked moodily up to Felgate’s study.Felgate was comfortably stretched on two chairs, reading a novel. But as he held the book upside down, Ainger concluded that he could not be very deeply engrossed in its contents.“You’re working, I hear?” said the captain.“Is that all you’ve come to tell me?” replied Felgate.“No, only most fellows when they’re reading—even if it’s novels, read the right way up. It’s bad for the eyes to do it upside down.”Felgate looked a little disconcerted and shut up his book.“You’ve missed the last two weeks at cricket,” said the captain. “We have managed to get on without you, though, and one of the things I looked in to say now was that if you choose to stay away always you are welcome. Don’t think it will put us out.”This was unexpected. Felgate was prepared to hear a peremptory order to go to the field, and had laid his plans for resisting it.“I’ve just been seeing one or two other louts down below who hadn’t turned up. I’m glad to hear you advised them to go when I sent Wake to fetch them. It’s a pity they didn’t take your advice, for I’ve had to thrash Munger. And if you happen to know where I can find the coward who put him and the rest up to breaking the rule, and didn’t dare to show face himself, I’ll thrash him too.”Felgate was completely disconcerted by this speech, and gnashed his teeth to find himself made a fool of after all.“Why on earth can’t you get out of my study and go down to your cricket? I don’t want you here,” he snarled.“I dare say not. But I thought you ought to know what I have been doing to enforce the rule, and what I mean to do. I hope you will tell that coward I spoke of what he may expect.”“Look here,” said Felgate, firing up—for a baulked bully rarely talks in a whisper—“you may think yourself a very important person, but I don’t.” (This was the speech Felgate had prepared in case he had been ordered down to cricket.) “I consider the cricket rule is a bad one, and I’m not surprised if fellows kick against it. I’ve something better to do than to go down to the field three times a week; and I shall certainly sympathise with any fellows who complain of it and try to get it abolished, and I’ve told them so. You can do what you like with me. I’ve told you what I shall do.”“And I,” said the captain, whose temper was extinguished, “have told you what I shall do. Is this room large enough, or shall we come outside?”Felgate stared at him in consternation.“Whatever do you mean?”“To fight.”“Rot! I’m not going to fight.”“Very well. Then I give you your choice—a thrashing like that I gave Munger just now; or you can go and put on your flannels and come down to the field.”Felgate hesitated. He had rarely been in such an awkward fix. He knew that a thrashing from the captain, besides being painful, would mean the extinction of any influence he ever had at Grandcourt. On the other hand—But he had not time to argue it out. Ainger had already laid down his bat.“You shall have it yourownway,” snarled he; “I’ll come to the field.”

It spoke well for Railsford’s growing influence with his boys that as soon as he returned to his post every sign of mutiny disappeared, and the house seemed to regain that spirit of ambition and self-reliance which had characterised the last days of the previous term. A few knotty questions, as the reader knows, were awaiting the Master of the Shell on his arrival, but he took them one at a time, and not having been involved in the previous altercations respecting them, disposed of them a great deal more easily than had been expected.

Things had been coming to a climax rather rapidly between Felgate and Ainger. Not that Felgate had committed any unusual offence, or that Ainger had discovered anything new about him which he had not known before; but during the last few weeks of last term, and the opening days of the present, the two had crossed one another’s paths frequently, and with increasing friction. Ainger was one of those fellows who, when their mind is set on a thing, seem to lose sight of all but two persons—the person who can help them most and the person who can hinder them most.

In the present case Ainger’s heart was set on making his house the crack house of Grandcourt. The person who could help him most was Railsford, and the person who could hinder him most was Felgate. The captain had been shy of the new Master of the Shell for a long time, and the mistrust had not been all on one side, but as last term had worn on, and a common cause had arisen in the temporary disgrace of the house, master and head prefect had felt drawn together in mutual confidence, and Railsford now, though he still did not always realise it, had no more loyal adherent than Ainger. Ainger, on his part, was quite ready to acknowledge that without Railsford the house stood a poor chance of fulfilling the ambitious project he and Barnworth had marked out for it, and he only hoped, now, that the master might not rest on the laurels of last term, but would help to carry through the still more important exploits of this.

The great obstacle to whatever good was going on in Railsford’s at present was Felgate. He had nearly succeeded last term in sowing discontent among the juvenile athletes, and he had, in the most unmistakable manner, not done his best in the one competition at the sports for which he had entered. That was bad enough, and the quick-tempered Ainger wrote up a heavy score against him on those two items. But now he had begun on a new line. Although a prefect himself, he not only evinced no interest in the order of the house at a time when the prefects were specially on their mettle, but he had taken pains to undermine the discipline of the place and set his authority up in antagonism to that of his own colleagues.

Felgate laid his plans deeply and cleverly. Ainger, as he knew, was popular because he had won the mile, and was upright, and meant what he said, and said what he meant. No boy of whom the same can be said could help being popular.

“But,” said Felgate to himself, “there are other ways of being popular. I haven’t won the mile or anything else; I’m not particularly upright, and I shouldn’t like to assert I always either say what I mean or mean what I say. Still I can make myself pleasant to a parcel of kids when I choose; I can let them off some of their little rows, and I can help them to some better sport than all this tomfoolery about getting up a crack eleven and winning all the school prizes. Ainger won’t like it, but I fancy I can sail close enough to the wind not to give him a chance of being down on me. And as for Railsford—the snob—if he interferes, well, I can take it out of him in a way he don’t suspect. What a hypocrite the fellow must be to do a thing like that, and come here smiling and talk about making this the crack house of Grandcourt! Bah!”

And the righteous soul of Felgate waxed hot within him, and he set himself to consider how, with least risk to himself, and most mischief to everyone else, he could drive a wedge into the project of his colleagues, and make to himself a party in Railsford’s. He passed in review the various rules of the house, to discover someone on which he might possibly found a grievance. For your man who sets himself to make a party must have a grievance. He fancied he had discovered just what he wanted in the time-honoured rule about compulsory cricket. Every boy was obliged to show up in the cricket-field three times a week, whether he liked it or not. There were very few boys in Railsford’s, as Felgate knew, who did not like it; but he fancied for all that he could make something out of the rule.

He began by breaking it himself. He knew that no one would be particularly concerned on his account, for he was an indifferent player, and also a prefect might on a pinch excuse himself. After a week’s abstention, during which, rather to his disappointment, no notice was taken of his defection, he began to talk about it to one and another of the more studious boys of the house, boys very keen on winning the school prizes at the end of the term for which they were entered. Sherriff of the Fifth was one of these, and, much as he liked cricket, he was bemoaning one day having to turn out into the fields just when he wanted to finish a knotty problem in trigonometry.

“Don’t go,” said Felgate. “Surely no one has a right to spoil your chance of a scholarship for a musty old school rule that ought to have been abolished a century ago.”

“It’s not a bad rule on the whole, I fancy,” said Sherriff; “but it comes a little rough on me just now.”

“My dear fellow, we’re not quite slaves here; and if it doesn’t suit you to go down on your knees to an antiquated rule of this kind, then you’re not the fellow I take you for if you do it. It hasn’t suited me often enough, and I’ve not been such a muff as to think twice about it.”

“What happened to you when you didn’t turn up?”

“Nothing, of course. I should have been rather glad if something had, for the sake of fighting the thing out. It’s enough to make some fellows loathe the very name of cricket, isn’t it?”

“Some of the fellows who can’t play don’t like it, certainly.”

“I don’t blame them. If only a few of them would stand out, they’d soon break down the system. But I’m keeping you from your work, old man; you’ll think me as bad as the rule. They say you’ll have a jolly hard fight for your exam, so you’re right to waste no time.”

The result of this conservation was that Sherriff, one of the steadiest second-rate bats in the house, was absent from the practice, and a hue-and-cry was made after him. He was found working hard in his study.

“I really can’t come to-day. I’m in for the exam, you know, and it’ll take me a tremendous grind to lick Redgrave.”

“But,” said Stafford, who was the ambassador, “it’s all the same for all of us. If every fellow said the same, it would be all up with house cricket; and we wanted to turn out such a hot team this year, too. Come on. You’ll do your work twice as well after it; and the ground’s just in perfect condition for batting to-day.”

Sherriff was not proof against this wily appeal. It had been an effort to him to break the rule. It was no effort now to decide to keep it. So he jumped into his flannels and took his beloved bat, and made a long score that morning against Wake’s bowling, and was happy. Felgate mentally abused him for his pusillanimity, but saw no reason, for all that, for not turning the incident to account. He proclaimed poor Sherriff's wrongs to a few of the other malcontents.

“It’s hard lines,” said he, “that just because of this wretched rule, Sherriff is to lose his scholarship. He can’t possibly win it unless he’s able to read every moment of his time; and that our grave and reverend seniors don’t mean to allow.”

“Brutal shame,” said Munger, “hounding him down like that I’ve half a mind to stick out.”

“That’s what Sherriff said,” sneered Felgate, “but he had to knuckle under.”

“Catch me knuckling under!” said Munger.

He stayed away the next practice day, and, much to his mortification, nobody took the slightest notice of his absence.

“You see,” said Felgate, “if only one or two of you stand steady, they can’t compel you to play. It’s ridiculous.”

Next day, accordingly, three fellows stayed away; who, as they were the three premier louts in Railsford’s, were never missed or inquired after. But when the next day the number swelled to five, and included Simson, who at least knew one end of a bat from the other, and had once tipped a ball to leg for two, the matter was no longer to be overlooked. The captain’s attention was called to the fact that one fellow in the Fifth, three in the Shell, and one Baby, besides Felgate, were not down on the ground.

“Fetch them, then,” said Ainger, “and tell them to look sharp, or they’ll catch it.”

Wake was the envoy this time, and duly delivered his message to the deserters, whom, rather suspiciously, as it seemed to him, he found together.

“You’d better go, you youngsters,” said. Felgate, with a sneer; “you’ll have to do it sooner or later—you’d better cave in at once.”

“I’m hanged if I go,” said Munger.

“I fancy that’s a safe fixture, whether you go or not,” drily observed Wake. “Look sharp, are you coming or not?”

“I’m not coming, I tell you,” said Munger.

“No more am I,” said Simson.

“No more am I,” said each of the others.

“Are you coming, Felgate?” demanded Wake.

This was an irreverent question for a Fifth-form boy to ask a prefect, and Felgate naturally rebuked it.

“It’s no business of yours, and you’d better not be impudent, I can tell you. As it happens, I’ve got some work to do, and can’t come. Cut away, you needn’t stay.”

Wake departed cheerfully, and announced that the whole thing was a “put-up job,” as Arthur would have called it, and that Felgate was at the bottom of it. Whereupon Ainger’s face grew dark, and he walked, bat in hand, to the house. The mutineers, with the exception of Felgate, who, with the usual prudence of a professional “patriot,” had retired to his study, were loafing about the common room just where Wake had interviewed them.

“What’s the meaning of all this?” demanded the captain; “what do you mean by not turning up to cricket and sending word you weren’t coming when Wake came for you?”

It was much easier defying Ainger in his absence than in his presence, and now that he stood there and confronted them, the delinquents did not quite feel the hardy men of war they had been five minutes ago. Munger, however, tried to carry the thing off with a bluster.

“We don’t see the fun of being compelled to go every time. We don’t care about cricket; besides—we don’t mean to go. Felgate doesn’t go; why don’t you make him?”

The captain put down his bat.

“Munger, go and put on your flannels at once.”

“What if I don’t?” asked Munger.

Ainger replied by giving him a thrashing there and then, despite his howls and protests that he had just been going, and would never do it again. The captain replied that he didn’t fancy hewoulddo it again in a hurry; and as the remainder of the company expressed positive impatience to go to the cricket-field, he let them of! with a caution, and, after seeing them started, walked moodily up to Felgate’s study.

Felgate was comfortably stretched on two chairs, reading a novel. But as he held the book upside down, Ainger concluded that he could not be very deeply engrossed in its contents.

“You’re working, I hear?” said the captain.

“Is that all you’ve come to tell me?” replied Felgate.

“No, only most fellows when they’re reading—even if it’s novels, read the right way up. It’s bad for the eyes to do it upside down.”

Felgate looked a little disconcerted and shut up his book.

“You’ve missed the last two weeks at cricket,” said the captain. “We have managed to get on without you, though, and one of the things I looked in to say now was that if you choose to stay away always you are welcome. Don’t think it will put us out.”

This was unexpected. Felgate was prepared to hear a peremptory order to go to the field, and had laid his plans for resisting it.

“I’ve just been seeing one or two other louts down below who hadn’t turned up. I’m glad to hear you advised them to go when I sent Wake to fetch them. It’s a pity they didn’t take your advice, for I’ve had to thrash Munger. And if you happen to know where I can find the coward who put him and the rest up to breaking the rule, and didn’t dare to show face himself, I’ll thrash him too.”

Felgate was completely disconcerted by this speech, and gnashed his teeth to find himself made a fool of after all.

“Why on earth can’t you get out of my study and go down to your cricket? I don’t want you here,” he snarled.

“I dare say not. But I thought you ought to know what I have been doing to enforce the rule, and what I mean to do. I hope you will tell that coward I spoke of what he may expect.”

“Look here,” said Felgate, firing up—for a baulked bully rarely talks in a whisper—“you may think yourself a very important person, but I don’t.” (This was the speech Felgate had prepared in case he had been ordered down to cricket.) “I consider the cricket rule is a bad one, and I’m not surprised if fellows kick against it. I’ve something better to do than to go down to the field three times a week; and I shall certainly sympathise with any fellows who complain of it and try to get it abolished, and I’ve told them so. You can do what you like with me. I’ve told you what I shall do.”

“And I,” said the captain, whose temper was extinguished, “have told you what I shall do. Is this room large enough, or shall we come outside?”

Felgate stared at him in consternation.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“To fight.”

“Rot! I’m not going to fight.”

“Very well. Then I give you your choice—a thrashing like that I gave Munger just now; or you can go and put on your flannels and come down to the field.”

Felgate hesitated. He had rarely been in such an awkward fix. He knew that a thrashing from the captain, besides being painful, would mean the extinction of any influence he ever had at Grandcourt. On the other hand—

But he had not time to argue it out. Ainger had already laid down his bat.

“You shall have it yourownway,” snarled he; “I’ll come to the field.”

Chapter Twenty.The Little Sweep.Ainger’s victory over the rebels had a great moral effect on the house. There was no further question as to the hardship of compulsory cricket; indeed, everyone became so keen on the prospect of turning out a “crack” eleven, that if the rule had required the attendance of every boy daily instead of thrice a week the fellows would have turned up.The prospects brightened rapidly after a week or two’s practice. Railsford put his shoulder to the wheel with his usual energy. He would bowl or bat or field with equal cheerfulness, if thereby he might smarten up the form of any player, however indifferent, who really wanted to improve. He specially devoted himself to the candidates for a place in the second eleven; and it presently began to be rumoured that Railsford’s would be able to put two elevens in the field, able to hold their own against any other two in Grandcourt. It was rather a big boast, but after the exploits of the house at the sports nobody could afford to make too little of its ambitious projects.Arthur, Dig, and theircoterie—most of them safely housed already in the second eleven—caught a regular cricket fever. They lived in an atmosphere of cricket. They thought in cricket, and dreamed of nothing else. Any question which arose resolved itself into a cricket match in their minds, and was mentally played out to bring it to a decision. Their ordinary talk betrayed their mania, and even their work was solaced by the importation of cricket into its deepest problems.Here, for instance, is an illustration of the kind of talk which might been have overheard one evening during the first part of the term in the study over Railsford’s head.Arthur was groaning over his Euclid.“I’m clean bowled by this blessed proposition,” said he. “Here have I been slogging away at it all the evening and never got my bat properly under it yet. You might give us a leg-up, Dig.”“Bless you,” said Dig, “I’m no good at that sort of yorker. I’m bad enough stumped as it is by this Horace. He gets an awful screw on now and then, and just when you think you’ve scored off him, there you are in among the slips, caught out low down. I vote we go and ask Marky.”“Don’t like it,” said Arthur. “Marky served us scurvily over poor old Smiley, and I don’t mean to go over his popping-crease, if I can help it, any more.”“That was an underhand twist altogether,” said Dig. “Bad enough for Ainger to bowl us out, without him giving it out, too, the way he did. You know, I really think we ought to tell him what a nice way we can stump him out if we like. He just thinks we’ve caved in and put off our pads.”“I don’t like it, Dig. It would be an awfully bad swipe, and Daisy would be knocked over as much as he would. We’re not forced to play up to him any more; but I don’t like running him out.”“You’re a jolly decent brother-in-law, you are,” said Dig admiringly, “and it’s a pity Marky don’t know what he owes you.”At this point Tilbury burst into the room. If Dig and Arthur were a little crazed about cricket, Tilbury was positively off his head.“How’s that, umpires?” cried he, as he entered. “Did you see me playing this afternoon? Went in second man, with Wake and Sherriff bowling, my boys. I knocked up thirty-two off my own bat, and would have been not out, only Mills saw where I placed my smacks in between the two legs, and slipped up and got hold of me low down with his left.”“All right,” said Arthur. “Why don’t you put on side? I was watching you, and saw you give three awfully bad chances in your first over. Never mind, stick to it, and we’ll make a tidy player of you some day. I hear they’re going to get up a third eleven. I dare say Ainger will stick you in it if we ask him.”Tilbury laughed good-humouredly; for it was all on the cards that he might get a place in the first eleven before very long.“I fancied Ainger had knocked you two over the boundary a little while ago. I heard someone say, by the way, if you two could be thrown into one, and taught to hold your bat straight and not hit everything across the wicket, you could be spared to play substitute in Wickford Infant School eleven at their next treat. I said I fancied not, but they’re going to try you, for the sake of getting rid of you for half a day.”“Get along. You needn’t bowl any of your mild lobs down to us. By the way, is it true you’ve been stuck in the choir?”“Yes; awful sell. I tried to scratch, but Parks said they were hard up for a good contralto; so I had to go in the team. I’m to be third man up in the anthem to-morrow—got half a line of solo.”“All serene,” said Arthur, “we’ll look out for squalls. Tip us one of your low A’s, and we’ll sky it from our pew. Who’s there?”It was Simson, also infected with the fever, although with him, being of the weak-minded order, it took the form of a craze for “sport” generally. For Simson, as we have mentioned, once tipped a ball to leg for two, and consequently was entitled to be regarded as an authority on every subject pertaining to the turf generally.He looked very important at present, as he began:“I say, you chaps, I’ve got something to tell you—private, you know. You know Mills? His father’s brother-in-law lives at Epsom, and so gets all the tips for the races; and Mills says he’s put his father up to no end of a straight tip for the Derby. And Mills says he wants to get up a little sweep on the quiet. No blanks, you know. Each fellow draws one horse, and the one that wins gets the lot. Jolly good score, too.”“Oh yes,” said Arthur, “I know all about that! I once put a sixpence in a sweep, and never saw it again. Catch me fielding in that little game.”“Oh, but Mills says it’s not to be for money, for that’s not allowed. He suggested postage-stamps, and then whoever won would be able to write lots of letters home, you know.”“Who wants to write lots of letters home?” said Dig, whose correspondence rarely exceeded two letters a term.“Well, of course, you’re not obliged,” explained Simson seriously. “If I drew Roaring Tommy—I mean,” said he, correcting himself with a blush, “if I drew the favourite, you know, and potted the sweep, I should turn the stamps into tin.”“Is Roaring Tommy the favourite, then?” asked Tilbury.“Yes. I oughtn’t to have let it out. I told Mills I wouldn’t; because it might get his father into a row. Mills says he’s dead certain to win. I say, shall you fellows go in?”“I don’t mind,” said Tilbury, “as it’s not money. Any fellow sell me six stamps?”“Yes, for sevenpence,” said Arthur. “I’m not going in, young Simson. My governor said to me the chances were some young blackleg or other would be on to me to shell out something for a swindle of the kind; and he said, ‘Don’t you do it.’ Besides, I’ve not got the money.”“I could lend you six stamps,” said Simson, who was very keen on the scheme, and failed to see any point in Arthur’s other remarks.“Not good enough,” said Arthur.“Not much chance of scoring, either,” said Dig, “if there’s about twenty go in and only one wins.”“Just as likely you win it as anybody else,” said Simson.“Come on, you needn’t funk it. Lots of fellows are in—Felgate’s in.”Arthur whistled.“He’s a prefect,” said he.“Of course he is, and he doesn’t see any harm in it.”“Who else?” asked Arthur.“Rogers, and Munger, and Sherriff.”“A first eleven chap,” ejaculated Dig.“Lots of others. There’s twelve names already out of twenty-one. No! thirteen, counting Tilbury. It’ll be too late to do it to-morrow.”Arthur looked at Dig and Dig looked at Arthur. Twenty-one sixpences were ten shillings and sixpence, and ten shillings and sixpence would buy a new bat,—at a cost of six stamps. His father had warned him against gambling with money, but had said nothing about postage-stamps. And the cautions Dig had received against all “evil ways” did not even specify gambling at all.Simson took out his list and wrote Tilbury’s name, and then waited for Arthur’s decision.“May as well,” said Dig.“Wait till to-morrow,” said Arthur, who still felt qualms.“You’ll be too late then,” said Simson.“All right—that’ll settle it then,” said Arthur.“Felgate said he thought you’d be sure to go in,” urged the tempter.“Did he?” said Arthur, a good deal impressed.“Yes,” said Dig jocularly, already fumbling the ten-and-six in anticipation in his pocket. “Any muff can get round Arthur.”It was an unlucky jest, if the baronet’s object was to decide his friend in favour of the proposal. For Arthur coloured up and took his hand out of his pocket.“Wait till to-morrow,” said he again.“Dig, you’ll give your name now, won’t you?” said Simson.“Don’t know,” said Dig evasively; “better not stick it down, that is, not unless the list gets full up, you know.”Simson treated this evasive reply as a consent, and wrote Digs name down, there and then, in his presence.“Come on, Herapath,” said he, making a last appeal. “Don’t desert your old friends.”“I tell you I can’t say anything till to-morrow,” said Arthur, a little crusty.Simson gave it up and departed.“Felgate seems to be bowling wide just now,” observed Dig. “I shouldn’t have fancied he’d have gone in for this sort of thing.”“Why shouldn’t he, just as much as you?” growled Arthur.“I? I haven’t gone in for it yet.”“Oh yes, you have; your name’s down.”“Only as last man in, though, in case he should get filled up.”“Doesn’t matter whether you go in first or last, you’re in the game.”“Well,” said Dig resignedly, “I don’t think I am, really; but if I am, I hope I get Roaring Tommy.”Simson had not much difficulty in filling up his list. The specious pretext of the postage-stamps did not delude many, but Felgate’s name worked wonders. Felgate had had no intention of allowing his name to be used, and was indeed in blissful ignorance that his support was generally known. He had in a reckless way expressed his sympathy with what he chose to term a very innocent “round game,” and had given practical proof of his sympathy by buying a ticket. That was yesterday, and he had since forgotten the whole affair, and was quietly looking about him for some new way of wiping off the rapidly-accumulating score against Railsford and his lieutenant Ainger.After his rebuff about the compulsory cricket—which, fortunately, no one but the captain (who was not the man to say much about it) had witnessed—Felgate had retired for a time into comparative seclusion. He believed in his lucky star, and hoped there was a good time coming. He still had his trump card in hand, but if he could win his trick without it he would be so much to the good.Arthur, when, on the day after Simson’s visit, he heard that the list was closed without him, kicked Simson, and felt on the whole rather glad. He had thought the matter over, and did not like breaking his promise to the people at home. Besides, he still felt sore at the loss of his former sixpence in a similar venture, and looked upon the whole business as more or less of a “plant.” Further than that, he now had a delightful opportunity of tormenting Sir Digby, who had weakly yielded to the tempter, albeit with a few qualms and prickings of conscience.“Just like you!” bragged Arthur; “anybody can do you! A precious lot of your six stamps you’ll see back!Iknow Mills—a regular shark!—and if there’s a row, he’ll back out and leave you and the rest of them to catch it; then who’ll be Roaring Tommy, eh?”Digby did not like this sort of talk; it offended him—besides, it frightened him.“Stuff and nonsense!” said he. “Who’s to care about a few postage-stamps? I wouldn’t gamble with money, not if I was paid for it. Why, I should fancy if Felgate goes in for it it’s not much harm.”“Felgate knows what he’s up to, and can look after himself,” said Arthur. “You can’t; you swallow everything any ass tells you!”“I don’t swallow allyoutell me, for one!” retorted Dig.Arthur coloured; he did not like being pulled up short like that, especially when he was doing the high moral business.“All serene!” said he testily; “do as you please. I’ve warned you to keep out of it, young Oakshott. Don’t blame me if you burn your fingers.”Thus said his prigship, and undid all the credit his little act of self-denial had earned him. He is not the only boy who gets his head turned now and then by the unexpected discovery that he is virtuous. Is he, reader?But, without being a prophet, his prigship managed on the present occasion to make a pretty near prediction, for Sir Digby Oakshott did burn his fingers.He was summoned one evening to Mills’s study to draw his horse. The twenty-one names were shaken up in a hat, and those present each drew out one. To Dig’s disgust, he drew Blazer—a horse whom everybody jeered at as a rank outsider. Simson was the fortunate drawer of Roaring Tommy. Mills got the second favourite, and Felgate—for whom, in his absence, Mills drew—got another outsider called Polo.Dig scarcely liked to tell Arthur of his bad luck, but his chum extracted the secret from him.“I’m jolly glad!” said Arthur sententiously; “the worst thing that could happen to you would be to win. I’m glad you’ll have a good lesson.”“Thanks,” said Dig, and went out to try to sell Blazer for three stamps. But no one would look at him, and Dig finally crushed the paper into his waistcoat-pocket in disgust, and wished he had his stamps safe there instead.A fortnight later, just as he and Arthur were marching down proudly to the cricket-field, in order to take part in a great match—the first of the season.—between an eleven of Ainger’s and an eleven of Barnworth’s, he was struck all of a heap by the amazing announcement, conveyed by Simson, that Blazer had won the Derby! Dig turned pale at the news, and convulsively dug his hand into his pocket to see if he had his paper safe.“Not really?” he exclaimed.“Yes, he has! Roaring Tommy was nowhere. Jolly lucky for me I sold my ticket to Tilbury for eight-and-six! I wish I’d bought yours for threepence when you asked me.”Dig laughed hysterically.“Then I’ve got the ten-and-six?” he asked.“Rather.”Dig made two duck’s eggs, and missed every ball that came in his way that afternoon, and was abused and hooted all round the field. What cared he? He had Blazer burning a hole in his pocket, and ten-and-six in postage-stamps waiting for him in Mills’s study. As soon as he could decently quit the scene of his inglorious exploits, he bolted off to claim his stakes. Mills was not at home, so he took a seat and waited for him, glancing round the room carefully, in case the stamps should be lying out for him somewhere. But they were not.In due time Mills returned.“Hullo, kid! what do you want?”Dig grinned and pulled out his paper.“How’s that, umpire?” demanded he.Mills stared at the document.“What on earth is the row with you? What are you driving at?”“Ten-and-sixpence, please,” said the beaming baronet; “I’ve got Blazer.”Mills laughed.“You’re not in much of a hurry. Has Blazer won, then?”“Yes; a rank outsider, too. Do you know, I tried all I knew to sell my ticket for threepence. Just fancy if I had.”“It’s a pity you didn’t,” said Mills, taking a chair, “The fact is, there’s been a bit of a muddle about Blazer. That ass Simson, when he wrote out the tickets, wrote Blazer twice over instead of Blazer and Catterwaul. They were both such regular outsiders, it didn’t seem worth correcting it at the time. I’m awfully sorry, you know, but your’s—let’s see,” said he, taking the cadaverous baronet’s ticket and looking at it, “yours has got one of the corners torn off—yes, that’s it. Yours should be Catterwaul.”Dig gasped, and tried to moisten his parched lips. It was a long time before the words came.“It’s a swindle!” cried he, choking. “I’ve won it—I—I—give me the 10 shillings 6 pence.”“Don’t make an ass of yourself,” said Mills. “I tell you you’ve got the wrong paper; isn’t that enough?”“No, it’s not enough, you thief, you!” roared Dig, tossing his tawny mane. “Everybody said you were a blackleg—I know it’s all lies you’re telling, and I—I—I don’t care if you do lick me.”As he didn’t care, of course it didn’t so much matter, but Mills cut short further argument by licking him and ejecting him neck and crop from the room.In the passage he pitched head-first into the arms of Mr Railsford.“What’s wrong?” asked the master, looking down at the miserable face of the small savage before him.“It’s a swindle!” shouted Dig. “It’s a swindle, Mr Railsford. I won it fairly—and he’s a thief—he’s stolen 10 shillings 6 pence of mine.”“Don’t make all that noise,” said Railsford quietly, for the luckless baronet was almost out of his wits. “I can hear you without shouting. Who has robbed you?”“Why, that blackleg swindler in there!” said Dig, pointing at Mills’s door. “Ten-and-six, ten-and-six—the thief!”“Come with me,” said the master, and he led Dig back into Mills’s study.“Mills,” said he, “Oakshott says you have robbed him. What does it mean?”“I’ve not done anything of the kind,” said Mills, himself rather pale and scared. “I told him—it was all a mistake. It wasn’t my fault.”“What was a mistake? Just tell me what it is all about.”Here Dig took up the parable.“Why, he got up a sweep on the Derby, and got us each to shell out six stamps, and there were twenty-one fellows in, and I drew Blazer, the winner; and now he won’t give me the stakes, and says my Blazer is a mistake for Catterwaul!”Railsford frowned.“This is a serious matter. You know the rule about gambling.”“Oh, please, sir,” said Mills, who had dropped all his bravado, as he realised that he stood a good chance of being expelled, “I really didn’t mean it for gambling; it wasn’t for money, only stamps; and I thought there was no harm. I’ll never do such a thing again, sir, really.” And he almost went on his knees.“The doctor must deal with this matter, Mills,” said Railsford sternly. “You must go to him to-morrow evening.”“Oh, Mr Railsford, he’ll expel me!” howled the culprit.“Good job, too,” ejaculated Dig,sotto voce.“Possibly,” said the master. “Where is the money?”Dig’s spirits rose. He knew he would get his rights!“The stamps—here, sir,” said the wretched Mills, going to his desk.“And where is the list of names?”Mills produced it, tremulously. Railsford’s brows knit as he glanced down it.“Each of these boys gave you six stamps?”“Twenty-one sixpences, ten-and-six,” said Dig, rehearsing his mental arithmetic.“Yes, sir. I really didn’t mean to cheat, sir.”“Yes, you did,” yapped Dig, who now that he was to finger his winnings had perked up wonderfully.“Silence, Oakshott,” said Railsford angrily. “Your name is here, last on the list. Take back your six stamps, and write me out one hundred lines of Livy by Thursday morning.”Poor Dig turned green, and staggered back a pace, and stared at the six stamps in his hand.“Why!” gasped he. “I had Blazer—I—”“Be silent, sir, and go to your study, and tell Tilbury to come here.”In due time Tilbury came, and received back his six stamps, and a hundred lines of Livy, and an order to send the next boy on the black list to receive a similar reward for his merits. And so the tedious process went on, and that afternoon, in Mills’s study, twenty boys sadly took back six stamps each, and received among them two thousand lines of Livy, to be handed in on Thursday morning. One name remained: the first on the list, and consequently the last in the order in which Railsford had taken it.“I will return these,” said he, taking up the six remaining stamps, “to Felgate myself.”Mills made one more appeal.“Do let me off going to the doctor, sir!” implored he. “Why, sir, I never thought it could be wrong if Felgate went in for it, and they’ve all got their stamps back, sir. Please let me off.”“I cannot do that. If the doctor treats you less severely than you deserve, it will be because you have made this reparation, instead of carrying out the act of dishonesty you had it in your mind to perpetrate.”And he left him there, and proceeded, with a heart as heavy as any he had worn since he came to Grandcourt, to Felgate’s study.

Ainger’s victory over the rebels had a great moral effect on the house. There was no further question as to the hardship of compulsory cricket; indeed, everyone became so keen on the prospect of turning out a “crack” eleven, that if the rule had required the attendance of every boy daily instead of thrice a week the fellows would have turned up.

The prospects brightened rapidly after a week or two’s practice. Railsford put his shoulder to the wheel with his usual energy. He would bowl or bat or field with equal cheerfulness, if thereby he might smarten up the form of any player, however indifferent, who really wanted to improve. He specially devoted himself to the candidates for a place in the second eleven; and it presently began to be rumoured that Railsford’s would be able to put two elevens in the field, able to hold their own against any other two in Grandcourt. It was rather a big boast, but after the exploits of the house at the sports nobody could afford to make too little of its ambitious projects.

Arthur, Dig, and theircoterie—most of them safely housed already in the second eleven—caught a regular cricket fever. They lived in an atmosphere of cricket. They thought in cricket, and dreamed of nothing else. Any question which arose resolved itself into a cricket match in their minds, and was mentally played out to bring it to a decision. Their ordinary talk betrayed their mania, and even their work was solaced by the importation of cricket into its deepest problems.

Here, for instance, is an illustration of the kind of talk which might been have overheard one evening during the first part of the term in the study over Railsford’s head.

Arthur was groaning over his Euclid.

“I’m clean bowled by this blessed proposition,” said he. “Here have I been slogging away at it all the evening and never got my bat properly under it yet. You might give us a leg-up, Dig.”

“Bless you,” said Dig, “I’m no good at that sort of yorker. I’m bad enough stumped as it is by this Horace. He gets an awful screw on now and then, and just when you think you’ve scored off him, there you are in among the slips, caught out low down. I vote we go and ask Marky.”

“Don’t like it,” said Arthur. “Marky served us scurvily over poor old Smiley, and I don’t mean to go over his popping-crease, if I can help it, any more.”

“That was an underhand twist altogether,” said Dig. “Bad enough for Ainger to bowl us out, without him giving it out, too, the way he did. You know, I really think we ought to tell him what a nice way we can stump him out if we like. He just thinks we’ve caved in and put off our pads.”

“I don’t like it, Dig. It would be an awfully bad swipe, and Daisy would be knocked over as much as he would. We’re not forced to play up to him any more; but I don’t like running him out.”

“You’re a jolly decent brother-in-law, you are,” said Dig admiringly, “and it’s a pity Marky don’t know what he owes you.”

At this point Tilbury burst into the room. If Dig and Arthur were a little crazed about cricket, Tilbury was positively off his head.

“How’s that, umpires?” cried he, as he entered. “Did you see me playing this afternoon? Went in second man, with Wake and Sherriff bowling, my boys. I knocked up thirty-two off my own bat, and would have been not out, only Mills saw where I placed my smacks in between the two legs, and slipped up and got hold of me low down with his left.”

“All right,” said Arthur. “Why don’t you put on side? I was watching you, and saw you give three awfully bad chances in your first over. Never mind, stick to it, and we’ll make a tidy player of you some day. I hear they’re going to get up a third eleven. I dare say Ainger will stick you in it if we ask him.”

Tilbury laughed good-humouredly; for it was all on the cards that he might get a place in the first eleven before very long.

“I fancied Ainger had knocked you two over the boundary a little while ago. I heard someone say, by the way, if you two could be thrown into one, and taught to hold your bat straight and not hit everything across the wicket, you could be spared to play substitute in Wickford Infant School eleven at their next treat. I said I fancied not, but they’re going to try you, for the sake of getting rid of you for half a day.”

“Get along. You needn’t bowl any of your mild lobs down to us. By the way, is it true you’ve been stuck in the choir?”

“Yes; awful sell. I tried to scratch, but Parks said they were hard up for a good contralto; so I had to go in the team. I’m to be third man up in the anthem to-morrow—got half a line of solo.”

“All serene,” said Arthur, “we’ll look out for squalls. Tip us one of your low A’s, and we’ll sky it from our pew. Who’s there?”

It was Simson, also infected with the fever, although with him, being of the weak-minded order, it took the form of a craze for “sport” generally. For Simson, as we have mentioned, once tipped a ball to leg for two, and consequently was entitled to be regarded as an authority on every subject pertaining to the turf generally.

He looked very important at present, as he began:

“I say, you chaps, I’ve got something to tell you—private, you know. You know Mills? His father’s brother-in-law lives at Epsom, and so gets all the tips for the races; and Mills says he’s put his father up to no end of a straight tip for the Derby. And Mills says he wants to get up a little sweep on the quiet. No blanks, you know. Each fellow draws one horse, and the one that wins gets the lot. Jolly good score, too.”

“Oh yes,” said Arthur, “I know all about that! I once put a sixpence in a sweep, and never saw it again. Catch me fielding in that little game.”

“Oh, but Mills says it’s not to be for money, for that’s not allowed. He suggested postage-stamps, and then whoever won would be able to write lots of letters home, you know.”

“Who wants to write lots of letters home?” said Dig, whose correspondence rarely exceeded two letters a term.

“Well, of course, you’re not obliged,” explained Simson seriously. “If I drew Roaring Tommy—I mean,” said he, correcting himself with a blush, “if I drew the favourite, you know, and potted the sweep, I should turn the stamps into tin.”

“Is Roaring Tommy the favourite, then?” asked Tilbury.

“Yes. I oughtn’t to have let it out. I told Mills I wouldn’t; because it might get his father into a row. Mills says he’s dead certain to win. I say, shall you fellows go in?”

“I don’t mind,” said Tilbury, “as it’s not money. Any fellow sell me six stamps?”

“Yes, for sevenpence,” said Arthur. “I’m not going in, young Simson. My governor said to me the chances were some young blackleg or other would be on to me to shell out something for a swindle of the kind; and he said, ‘Don’t you do it.’ Besides, I’ve not got the money.”

“I could lend you six stamps,” said Simson, who was very keen on the scheme, and failed to see any point in Arthur’s other remarks.

“Not good enough,” said Arthur.

“Not much chance of scoring, either,” said Dig, “if there’s about twenty go in and only one wins.”

“Just as likely you win it as anybody else,” said Simson.

“Come on, you needn’t funk it. Lots of fellows are in—Felgate’s in.”

Arthur whistled.

“He’s a prefect,” said he.

“Of course he is, and he doesn’t see any harm in it.”

“Who else?” asked Arthur.

“Rogers, and Munger, and Sherriff.”

“A first eleven chap,” ejaculated Dig.

“Lots of others. There’s twelve names already out of twenty-one. No! thirteen, counting Tilbury. It’ll be too late to do it to-morrow.”

Arthur looked at Dig and Dig looked at Arthur. Twenty-one sixpences were ten shillings and sixpence, and ten shillings and sixpence would buy a new bat,—at a cost of six stamps. His father had warned him against gambling with money, but had said nothing about postage-stamps. And the cautions Dig had received against all “evil ways” did not even specify gambling at all.

Simson took out his list and wrote Tilbury’s name, and then waited for Arthur’s decision.

“May as well,” said Dig.

“Wait till to-morrow,” said Arthur, who still felt qualms.

“You’ll be too late then,” said Simson.

“All right—that’ll settle it then,” said Arthur.

“Felgate said he thought you’d be sure to go in,” urged the tempter.

“Did he?” said Arthur, a good deal impressed.

“Yes,” said Dig jocularly, already fumbling the ten-and-six in anticipation in his pocket. “Any muff can get round Arthur.”

It was an unlucky jest, if the baronet’s object was to decide his friend in favour of the proposal. For Arthur coloured up and took his hand out of his pocket.

“Wait till to-morrow,” said he again.

“Dig, you’ll give your name now, won’t you?” said Simson.

“Don’t know,” said Dig evasively; “better not stick it down, that is, not unless the list gets full up, you know.”

Simson treated this evasive reply as a consent, and wrote Digs name down, there and then, in his presence.

“Come on, Herapath,” said he, making a last appeal. “Don’t desert your old friends.”

“I tell you I can’t say anything till to-morrow,” said Arthur, a little crusty.

Simson gave it up and departed.

“Felgate seems to be bowling wide just now,” observed Dig. “I shouldn’t have fancied he’d have gone in for this sort of thing.”

“Why shouldn’t he, just as much as you?” growled Arthur.

“I? I haven’t gone in for it yet.”

“Oh yes, you have; your name’s down.”

“Only as last man in, though, in case he should get filled up.”

“Doesn’t matter whether you go in first or last, you’re in the game.”

“Well,” said Dig resignedly, “I don’t think I am, really; but if I am, I hope I get Roaring Tommy.”

Simson had not much difficulty in filling up his list. The specious pretext of the postage-stamps did not delude many, but Felgate’s name worked wonders. Felgate had had no intention of allowing his name to be used, and was indeed in blissful ignorance that his support was generally known. He had in a reckless way expressed his sympathy with what he chose to term a very innocent “round game,” and had given practical proof of his sympathy by buying a ticket. That was yesterday, and he had since forgotten the whole affair, and was quietly looking about him for some new way of wiping off the rapidly-accumulating score against Railsford and his lieutenant Ainger.

After his rebuff about the compulsory cricket—which, fortunately, no one but the captain (who was not the man to say much about it) had witnessed—Felgate had retired for a time into comparative seclusion. He believed in his lucky star, and hoped there was a good time coming. He still had his trump card in hand, but if he could win his trick without it he would be so much to the good.

Arthur, when, on the day after Simson’s visit, he heard that the list was closed without him, kicked Simson, and felt on the whole rather glad. He had thought the matter over, and did not like breaking his promise to the people at home. Besides, he still felt sore at the loss of his former sixpence in a similar venture, and looked upon the whole business as more or less of a “plant.” Further than that, he now had a delightful opportunity of tormenting Sir Digby, who had weakly yielded to the tempter, albeit with a few qualms and prickings of conscience.

“Just like you!” bragged Arthur; “anybody can do you! A precious lot of your six stamps you’ll see back!Iknow Mills—a regular shark!—and if there’s a row, he’ll back out and leave you and the rest of them to catch it; then who’ll be Roaring Tommy, eh?”

Digby did not like this sort of talk; it offended him—besides, it frightened him.

“Stuff and nonsense!” said he. “Who’s to care about a few postage-stamps? I wouldn’t gamble with money, not if I was paid for it. Why, I should fancy if Felgate goes in for it it’s not much harm.”

“Felgate knows what he’s up to, and can look after himself,” said Arthur. “You can’t; you swallow everything any ass tells you!”

“I don’t swallow allyoutell me, for one!” retorted Dig.

Arthur coloured; he did not like being pulled up short like that, especially when he was doing the high moral business.

“All serene!” said he testily; “do as you please. I’ve warned you to keep out of it, young Oakshott. Don’t blame me if you burn your fingers.”

Thus said his prigship, and undid all the credit his little act of self-denial had earned him. He is not the only boy who gets his head turned now and then by the unexpected discovery that he is virtuous. Is he, reader?

But, without being a prophet, his prigship managed on the present occasion to make a pretty near prediction, for Sir Digby Oakshott did burn his fingers.

He was summoned one evening to Mills’s study to draw his horse. The twenty-one names were shaken up in a hat, and those present each drew out one. To Dig’s disgust, he drew Blazer—a horse whom everybody jeered at as a rank outsider. Simson was the fortunate drawer of Roaring Tommy. Mills got the second favourite, and Felgate—for whom, in his absence, Mills drew—got another outsider called Polo.

Dig scarcely liked to tell Arthur of his bad luck, but his chum extracted the secret from him.

“I’m jolly glad!” said Arthur sententiously; “the worst thing that could happen to you would be to win. I’m glad you’ll have a good lesson.”

“Thanks,” said Dig, and went out to try to sell Blazer for three stamps. But no one would look at him, and Dig finally crushed the paper into his waistcoat-pocket in disgust, and wished he had his stamps safe there instead.

A fortnight later, just as he and Arthur were marching down proudly to the cricket-field, in order to take part in a great match—the first of the season.—between an eleven of Ainger’s and an eleven of Barnworth’s, he was struck all of a heap by the amazing announcement, conveyed by Simson, that Blazer had won the Derby! Dig turned pale at the news, and convulsively dug his hand into his pocket to see if he had his paper safe.

“Not really?” he exclaimed.

“Yes, he has! Roaring Tommy was nowhere. Jolly lucky for me I sold my ticket to Tilbury for eight-and-six! I wish I’d bought yours for threepence when you asked me.”

Dig laughed hysterically.

“Then I’ve got the ten-and-six?” he asked.

“Rather.”

Dig made two duck’s eggs, and missed every ball that came in his way that afternoon, and was abused and hooted all round the field. What cared he? He had Blazer burning a hole in his pocket, and ten-and-six in postage-stamps waiting for him in Mills’s study. As soon as he could decently quit the scene of his inglorious exploits, he bolted off to claim his stakes. Mills was not at home, so he took a seat and waited for him, glancing round the room carefully, in case the stamps should be lying out for him somewhere. But they were not.

In due time Mills returned.

“Hullo, kid! what do you want?”

Dig grinned and pulled out his paper.

“How’s that, umpire?” demanded he.

Mills stared at the document.

“What on earth is the row with you? What are you driving at?”

“Ten-and-sixpence, please,” said the beaming baronet; “I’ve got Blazer.”

Mills laughed.

“You’re not in much of a hurry. Has Blazer won, then?”

“Yes; a rank outsider, too. Do you know, I tried all I knew to sell my ticket for threepence. Just fancy if I had.”

“It’s a pity you didn’t,” said Mills, taking a chair, “The fact is, there’s been a bit of a muddle about Blazer. That ass Simson, when he wrote out the tickets, wrote Blazer twice over instead of Blazer and Catterwaul. They were both such regular outsiders, it didn’t seem worth correcting it at the time. I’m awfully sorry, you know, but your’s—let’s see,” said he, taking the cadaverous baronet’s ticket and looking at it, “yours has got one of the corners torn off—yes, that’s it. Yours should be Catterwaul.”

Dig gasped, and tried to moisten his parched lips. It was a long time before the words came.

“It’s a swindle!” cried he, choking. “I’ve won it—I—I—give me the 10 shillings 6 pence.”

“Don’t make an ass of yourself,” said Mills. “I tell you you’ve got the wrong paper; isn’t that enough?”

“No, it’s not enough, you thief, you!” roared Dig, tossing his tawny mane. “Everybody said you were a blackleg—I know it’s all lies you’re telling, and I—I—I don’t care if you do lick me.”

As he didn’t care, of course it didn’t so much matter, but Mills cut short further argument by licking him and ejecting him neck and crop from the room.

In the passage he pitched head-first into the arms of Mr Railsford.

“What’s wrong?” asked the master, looking down at the miserable face of the small savage before him.

“It’s a swindle!” shouted Dig. “It’s a swindle, Mr Railsford. I won it fairly—and he’s a thief—he’s stolen 10 shillings 6 pence of mine.”

“Don’t make all that noise,” said Railsford quietly, for the luckless baronet was almost out of his wits. “I can hear you without shouting. Who has robbed you?”

“Why, that blackleg swindler in there!” said Dig, pointing at Mills’s door. “Ten-and-six, ten-and-six—the thief!”

“Come with me,” said the master, and he led Dig back into Mills’s study.

“Mills,” said he, “Oakshott says you have robbed him. What does it mean?”

“I’ve not done anything of the kind,” said Mills, himself rather pale and scared. “I told him—it was all a mistake. It wasn’t my fault.”

“What was a mistake? Just tell me what it is all about.”

Here Dig took up the parable.

“Why, he got up a sweep on the Derby, and got us each to shell out six stamps, and there were twenty-one fellows in, and I drew Blazer, the winner; and now he won’t give me the stakes, and says my Blazer is a mistake for Catterwaul!”

Railsford frowned.

“This is a serious matter. You know the rule about gambling.”

“Oh, please, sir,” said Mills, who had dropped all his bravado, as he realised that he stood a good chance of being expelled, “I really didn’t mean it for gambling; it wasn’t for money, only stamps; and I thought there was no harm. I’ll never do such a thing again, sir, really.” And he almost went on his knees.

“The doctor must deal with this matter, Mills,” said Railsford sternly. “You must go to him to-morrow evening.”

“Oh, Mr Railsford, he’ll expel me!” howled the culprit.

“Good job, too,” ejaculated Dig,sotto voce.

“Possibly,” said the master. “Where is the money?”

Dig’s spirits rose. He knew he would get his rights!

“The stamps—here, sir,” said the wretched Mills, going to his desk.

“And where is the list of names?”

Mills produced it, tremulously. Railsford’s brows knit as he glanced down it.

“Each of these boys gave you six stamps?”

“Twenty-one sixpences, ten-and-six,” said Dig, rehearsing his mental arithmetic.

“Yes, sir. I really didn’t mean to cheat, sir.”

“Yes, you did,” yapped Dig, who now that he was to finger his winnings had perked up wonderfully.

“Silence, Oakshott,” said Railsford angrily. “Your name is here, last on the list. Take back your six stamps, and write me out one hundred lines of Livy by Thursday morning.”

Poor Dig turned green, and staggered back a pace, and stared at the six stamps in his hand.

“Why!” gasped he. “I had Blazer—I—”

“Be silent, sir, and go to your study, and tell Tilbury to come here.”

In due time Tilbury came, and received back his six stamps, and a hundred lines of Livy, and an order to send the next boy on the black list to receive a similar reward for his merits. And so the tedious process went on, and that afternoon, in Mills’s study, twenty boys sadly took back six stamps each, and received among them two thousand lines of Livy, to be handed in on Thursday morning. One name remained: the first on the list, and consequently the last in the order in which Railsford had taken it.

“I will return these,” said he, taking up the six remaining stamps, “to Felgate myself.”

Mills made one more appeal.

“Do let me off going to the doctor, sir!” implored he. “Why, sir, I never thought it could be wrong if Felgate went in for it, and they’ve all got their stamps back, sir. Please let me off.”

“I cannot do that. If the doctor treats you less severely than you deserve, it will be because you have made this reparation, instead of carrying out the act of dishonesty you had it in your mind to perpetrate.”

And he left him there, and proceeded, with a heart as heavy as any he had worn since he came to Grandcourt, to Felgate’s study.

Chapter Twenty One.The Naturalists’ Field Club.Felgate, as we have said, had almost forgotten the existence of the sweep or the fact that he had given his name to the venture. When therefore Railsford unexpectedly walked into his study, he did not in any way connect the visit with that trivial incident. He conjured up in his mind any possible motive the master could have for this interview. He could only think of one, and perceiving a paper in Railsford’s hands, concluded that he had discovered the authorship of a certain anonymous letter addressed to Mr Bickers, and had looked in for a little explanation.Felgate was quite prepared to gratify him, and promised himself a cheerful quarter of an hour over so congenial an occupation. He was, in consequence, considerably mortified when the real object of the visit unfolded itself.“Felgate,” said Railsford, “I have come to you on very unpleasant business. This is not the first time I have had to caution you that your example in the house is neither worthy of a prefect nor a senior boy.”“Thank you, sir,” said Felgate, with ostentatious indifference. He had better have remained silent, for Railsford dismissed whatever of mildness he had come armed with, and stood on his dignity.“Don’t be impertinent, Felgate; it will do you no good. I want to know how it comes that your name appears here at the head of a list of entries for a sweepstake on a horse race, when you as a prefect know that gambling in any shape or form is strictly prohibited here?”Felgate, taken back by this unexpected indictment, looked at the paper and laughed.“I really don’t know how my name comes there. I can’t be supposed to know why anybody who likes should write my name down on a piece of paper.”“You mean to say that you never entered your name?” asked Railsford, beginning to feel a sense of relief.“Certainly not.”“You were asked to do so? What did you reply?”“I haven’t a notion. I probably said, don’t bother me—or do anything you like, or something of that sort.”“Did you point out that it was against the rules?”“No. Is it against the rules? There doesn’t seem any harm in it, if fellows choose to do it. Besides, it wasn’t for money.”“Did you give six stamps?”“Stamps? I fancy someone came to borrow some stamps of me a week or so ago. I forget who it was.”“Felgate,” said the master with a tone of scorn which made the prefect wince, “it is hardly worth your while to tell lies when you can satisfy me of your guilt quite as easily by telling the truth. I won’t ask you more questions, for I have no wish to give you more opportunities of falsehood. Here are your six stamps. Go to Doctor Ponsford to-morrow at 8 p.m.”Felgate looked blank at this announcement.“What!” he exclaimed. “Go to the doctor? Are you going to tell him about a trifle like this?”“It is no trifle for a prefect deliberately to break the school rules and encourage others to do so. I have said the same thing to you before.”“Look here, Mr Railsford,” said Felgate, with a curious mixture of cringing and menace. “It’s not fair to send me to the doctor about a thing like this. I know you have a spite against me; but you can take it out of me without bringing him into it. I fancy if you knew all I know, you’d think twice before you did it.”Railsford looked at him curiously.“You surely forget, Felgate, that you are not speaking to a boy in the Shell.”“No, I don’t. I know you’re a master, and head of a house, and a man who ought to be everything that’s right and good—”“Come, come,” interrupted Railsford, “we have had enough of this. You are excited and forget yourself to talk in this foolish way.”And he quitted the study.What, he wondered, could be the meaning of all this wild outbreak on the part of the detected prefect? What did he mean by that “If you knew all I know”? It sounded like one of those vague menaces with which Arthur had been wont to garnish his utterances last term. What did Felgate know, beyond the secret of his own wrong-doings, which could possibly affect the Master of the Shell?It flashed across Railsford suddenly—suggested perhaps by the connection of two ideas—that Arthur himself might be in some peril or difficulty. It was long since the master had attempted to control the secret of his prospective relationship with the vivacious young Shell-fish. Everybody knew about it as soon as ever he set foot in Grandcourt, and Daisy’s name was common property all over the house. Arthur had contrived to reap no small advantage from the connection. The prefects had pretty much left him alone, and, as a relative of the master, he had been tacitly winked at in many of his escapades, with a leniency which another boy could not have hoped for.What if now Arthur should lie under the shadow of some peril which, if it fell, must envelop him and his brother-in-law both? If, for instance, he had committed some capital offence, which if brought to light should throw on him (Railsford) the terrible duty of nipping in the bud the school career of Daisy’s own brother? It seemed the only solution to Felgate’s mysterious threat, and it made him profoundly uncomfortable.He felt he had not done all the might for the boy. He had been so scrupulously careful not to give any pretext for a charge of favouritism, that he had even neglected him at times. Now and then he had had a chat; but Arthur had such a painful way of getting into awkward topics that such conferences were usually short and formal. He had occasionally given an oversight to the boy’s work; but Arthur so greatly preferred to “mug,” as he called it, in his own study, that opportunities for serious private coaching had been quite rare.Recently, too, a difference had sprung up between Arthur and Marky about the Smileys; and Railsford felt that he had not done all he might to smooth over that bitter memory and recover the loyalty and affection of the bereaved dog-fancier. It may have been some or all of these notions which prompted the master to invite his young kinsman to accompany him on the following day—being the mid-term holiday—on an expedition into the country.The occasion had been chosen by the Grandcourt Naturalists’ Field Club for their yearly picnic. This club was a very select, and, by repute, dry institution, consisting partly of scientific boys and partly of masters. Its supposed object was to explore the surrounding country for geological, botanical, and historical specimens, which were, when found, deposited in a museum which nobody in the school on any pretext ever visited.Every member had the privilege of introducing a friend, but no one took advantage of the invitation, except once a year, on the occasion of the annual picnic, when there was always a great rush, and a severe competition to be numbered among the happy participants of the club’s hospitality.It was long since Arthur had given up all idea of joining these happy parties. Great therefore was his astonishment and delight when on the evening before the term holiday Railsford put his head into the study and said—“Arthur, would you like to come to-morrow to the Field Club picnic at Wellham Abbey?”“Rather,” said Arthur.“Very well; be ready at ten. I’ve ordered a tandem tricycle.”Arthur was in ecstasy. If there was one kind of spree he liked it was a picnic at an abbey; and if there was one sort of conveyance he doated on it was a tricycle. He wiped off every score on his mental slate against Marky, and voted him the greatest brick going, and worthy to be backed up to the very end—especially if they had oysters at the picnic!“Wishyoucould come, old man,” said he to Dig, who was groaning over his 100 lines of Livy.“I wouldn’t go with him if he asked me, the cad!” growled Dig.“No, he’s not a cad. If it hadn’t been for him you wouldn’t have seen one of your stamps back; and you might have been expelled straight away into the bargain. Tell you what, Dig, you’ve been scouting for Stafford all the last week; he ought to do something for you. Why don’t you ask him to take you? He’ll do it, like a shot. He’s always civil to us.”Dig thought it over.“If he says Yes, will you help me polish off my lines?”“All right. I say, go soon, or somebody else may have asked him.”Dig went, and to his satisfaction was informed that Stafford would take him, if he promised to be steady. Which of course he did promise. So between them the two chums polished off the Livy—never was the great historian made such mincemeat of before or after—and then gave themselves over to delightful anticipations of the Field Club picnic.One misgiving disturbed Arthur’s peace of mind. Railsford might make a base use of his opportunity as partner on the tricycle to corner him about his misdeeds and generally to “jaw” him. Besides, as Dig was going too, it would be ever so much jollier if Dig and he could go to Wellham together and let the masters go by themselves.“We must work it somehow, Dig,” said Arthur. “If we go we must have a high old time—and not be let in for a lot of rot about old bones and fossils and that sort of thing.”“Rather not,” said Dig, “though I wouldn’t mind if we could get hold of a skull. It would look prime on the mantelpiece.”“Gammer, who went last year, says it was an awful go-to-meeting turn-out. Top-hats, and service at the abbey, and scarcely a bit of grub; but I hear the spread’s to be rather good this year, down by the river’s edge.”“Hooroo!” said Dig, “I guess you and I will be about when they call over for that part of the spree.”The morning was dull and cloudy, and Dig and Arthur as they stood on the hall steps and looked up at the sky, debated with themselves whether the day would hold up long enough to allow of the picnic at the water’s edge. To their relief, the other excursionists who gradually assembled took a hopeful view of the weather and predicted that it would be a fine afternoon, whatever the morning might be.As they were Naturalist Field Club people, our boys supposed they knew what they were saying, and dismissed their qualms in consequence.Wellham Abbey was ten miles off. Most of the party proposed to reach it on foot. Mr Roe was driving with the doctor and his niece, and one or two others, like Railsford, preferred to travel on wheels.Dig was standing somewhat lugubriously beside Arthur, inspecting the tandem, and wondering how he was to get to Wellham, when Mr Grover came up and said to Railsford—“How are you going, Railsford? Not in that concern, are you? Come and walk with me, I’ve not had a chat with you for ages.”Arthur felt a violent dig in his ribs from the delighted baronet. There was a chance for the “high old time” yet.“Well, the fact is, I’d promised one of my boys to give him the ride,” said the Master of the Shell.“Oh, please don’t mind me,” said Arthur. “Oakshott and I can bring the machine for you to Wellham, if you’d sooner walk.”“Is Oakshott going?”“Yes, sir. Stafford’s asked him, hasn’t he, Dig?”“Yes, sir. I’ve scouted for Stafford at cricket this term, so he’s asked me to-day; and I’ve done my lines, sir.”“Oh, very well,” said Railsford, to whom the temptation of a walk with Grover was even greater than that of atête-à-têteride with Arthur Herapath; “but can you manage it?”“Manage it?” exclaimed they, in tones as if they could scarcely believe they heard aright, “rather, sir.”“Well,” said the master, tickled with the evident delight of the pair to be together, “take care how you go. You had better take the Grassen Road, so as to avoid the hill. Come along, Grover.”So these two artful young “naturalists” had it their own way after all.“Come on, sharp,” said Arthur, “and get out of the ruck.”“Jolly good joke telling us not to go by Maiden Hill,” said Digby; “that’ll be the best part of the lark.”Luckily a tandem tricycle of the type provided for them is not a machine which requires any very specially delicate riding. Had it been, Arthur and Dig might have been some time getting out of the “ruck,” as they politely termed the group of their pedestrian fellow-naturalists. For they were neither of them adepts; besides which, the tricycle being intended for a pair of full-grown men, they had some difficulty in keeping their saddles and working their treadles at one and the same time. They had to part company with the latter when they went down, and catch them flying as they came up; and the result was not always elegant or swift. However, they managed to pass muster in some sort, as they started off under the eye of their master, and as speedily as possible dodged their vehicle up a side lane, where, free from embarrassing publicity, they were at leisure to adapt their progress to their own convenience.It wasn’t quite as much fun as they had expected. The machine was a heavy one, and laboured a good deal in its going. The treadles, as I have said, were very long; the brake did not always act, and the steering apparatus was stiff. Even the bell, in whose music they had promised themselves some solace, was out of tune; and the road was very like a ploughed field. The gaiety of the boys toned down into sobriety, and the sobriety into silence, and their silence into the ill-humour begotten of perspiration, dust, fatigue, and disappointment. Their high old time was not coming off!At length, by mutual consent, they got off and began viciously to shove the machine up the hill.“They’ll all be there already,” said Arthur, looking at his watch. “We’ve been two hours.”“I wish I’d walked with them,” said Dig.“Pity you didn’t,” growled Arthur, “you aren’t very lively company.”“Anyhow, I’ve done my share of the fag. You and Marky may bring the beast home.”This altercation might have proceeded to painful lengths, had not a diversion occurred in their arrival at the crest of the hill.Any ordinary traveller would have stood and admired the beautiful view—the finest, it was said, in the county. But Arthur and Dig were in no humour for artistic raptures. The sight of the abbey towers peeping cut in the valley among the trees, and of the silver river which curled past it, suggested to them no thoughts of historic grandeur—no meditations on the pathetic beauty of ruin. It made them smell oysters and hear the popping of lemonade corks, and reminded them they had still two long miles to go before lunch.“Get on, sharp,” said Arthur, climbing into his saddle, “it won’t take us long to go down the hill.”It didn’t! They did the distance, a mile and a half, in about three minutes. The brake came to grief the moment they started, and they had nothing for it but to hold on and let her fly. As to attempting to control the speed with their feet, they were thankful enough to get those members up on the rest out of reach of the treadles, which plunged up and down like the pistons of a steam-engine. Luckily there was nothing on the road; luckily, too, the ruts which had broken the ground on the other side were for the most part absent on this. Once or twice the machine lurched ominously, and they thought all was up, and once or twice a stone or obstacle ahead promised to terminate finally their headlong career. But the gallant tandem cleared them all, and her passengers clutched on to their handles like grim death; and between them they did the distance in some seconds under the record, and ran a clean half-mile on the level at the foot of the hill before they could bring one of the most famous runs of the season to a standstill. Thanks to this rapid performance they were only about a quarter of an hour after the pedestrians at the abbey.“Well, here you are,” said Railsford; “you came by Grassen, I suppose? Rather rough riding, wasn’t it?”“We came by Maiden Hill after all,” said Arthur. “Itwasrather rough.”“Did you walk down, then?”“No, we rode it. We came down in pretty good time. There’s something the matter with the brake, so we had to let her go.”Possibly Railsford had a better notion of the narrow escape of the two hare-brained young guests of the club than they had themselves. They forgot all about it the moment they saw a hamper being carried in the direction of the river and heard Mr Roe announce that they might as well have lunch now, and explore the abbey afterwards.“Hear, hear,” whispered Dig to his friend. “Eh?”“Rather,” said Arthur.And they were invaluable in spreading the repast and hastening the moment when Mr Roe at last announced that they were all ready to begin.It was rather an imposing company. The doctor was there, and his niece, and Messrs Roe, Grover, Railsford, and one or two other masters. Smedley also was present, very attentive to Miss Violet; and Clipstone was there, as well as our friends Ainger, Barnworth, and Stafford. And all the learned luminaries of the Fifth were there, too, and one or two scientists from the Fourth. Arthur and Dig had rarely been in such good company, and had certainly never before realised how naturalists can eat. It was a splendid spread, and the two chums, snugly entrenched behind a rampart of hampers, drowned their sorrows and laid their dust in lemonade, and recruited their minds and bodies with oysters and cold beef, and rolls and jam tarts, till the profession of a naturalist seemed to them to be one of the most glorious in all this glorious world.“Now,” said Mr Roe, who was president of the club and host, “let us go and see the abbey. I have put together a few notes on its history and architecture, which I thought might be useful. Let us go first to the Saxon crypt, which is unquestionably the oldest portion of the structure.”“Oh, lag all that,” said Dig to his friend. “Are you going to hear all that rot?”“Not if I know it,” replied Arthur. “We’d better lie low, and help wash up the plates, and when they’re gone we can go for a spin up the big window.”So, when Mr Roe, having collected his little audience round him, began to descant with glowing countenance on the preciousness of some fragments of a reputed Druidical font lately dug up in the crypt, two naturalists, who should have been hanging on his lips, were busy polishing up the plates and the remnants of the repast, at the water’s edge, and watching their chance for a “spin” up the ruined arch of the great window. That window in its day must have been one of the finest abbey windows in England. It still stood erect, covered with ivy, while all around it walls, towers, and roof had crumbled into dust. Some of the slender stone framework still dropped gracefully from the Gothic arch, and at the apex of all there still adhered a foot or two of the sturdy masonry of the old belfry.No boy could look up to that lofty platform, standing out clear against the grey sky, without feeling his feet tingle. Certainly Arthur and Dig were not proof against its fascination.The first part of the climb, up the tumbled walls and along the ivy-covered buttresses, was easy enough. The few sparrows and swallows bustling out from the ivy at their approach had often been similarly disturbed before. But when they reached the point where the great arch, freeing itself, as it were, of its old supports, sprung in one clear sweep skyward, their difficulties began. The treacherous stones more than once crumbled under their feet, and had it not been for the sustaining ivy, they would have come down with a run too.“You see,” said Mr Roe to his admiring audience below, “the work of dissolution is still rapidly going on. These stones have fallen from the great arch since we came here.”“Regular jerry-builders they must have had in those days,” growled Dig, scrambling up the last few yards; “did you ever see such rotten walls?”Arthur confessed he hadn’t; but having gained the top, he forgave the builders. Rarely had Dig and he been so pleased with themselves and one another. It was a genuine feat of climbing, of which very few could boast; and peril and achievement bind friends together as no mortar ever binds bricks.“That window,” said Mr Roe, looking up from below, “is considered inaccessible. It is said to be haunted; but the truth is, I believe, that it is infested by owls.”Here a faint “boo-hoo!” from above bore sudden and striking testimony to the truth of the master’s observations.“Hullo!” said Arthur, peering over, “they’re going. Look sharp down, Dig, or we’ll be left.”Dig obeyed. It was much more difficult getting down than getting up. Still, by dint of clinging tight hold of the ivy and feeling every step, he managed to descend the perilous arch and get on to the comparatively safe footing of the buttress.“You cut on,” shouted Arthur from above, “I’ll be down in a second. Don’t wait—I have found an owl’s nest up here; and I’m going to collar a young ’un for each of us. Don’t tell them. If Railsford asks where I am, tell him I’m walking home. You can go with him on the tandem. I’ll be home as soon as you.”At the same moment a shout from below of “Herapath!” “Oakshott!” still further hastened Dig’s descent toterra firma.“Come on,” said Railsford, who was already seated on the tricycle, “it’s coming on to rain. Where’s Herapath?”“Oh, he’s walking home. He told me to tell you so. We’ve been scrambling about. Can I come in the tandem?”“If he’s not coming you can. Has he gone on, then?”“No—he was just getting a—a specimen,” said Dig, hopping up on the saddle, and resolving that Marky should do all the work. “He says he’d sooner walk.”“Dear me! here comes the rain,” said Railsford, turning up his collar, “we’d better go on. He’ll get wet, whichever way he comes home.”So they departed—as also did Mr Roe and the doctor and all the others.“There’s an owl again,” said Mr Roe, looking back at the big window.He was wrong. The shout he heard was from Arthur; not this time in sport, but in grim earnest. For, having abandoned the idea of capturing the owls, he had started to descend the arch. He had safely accomplished half the distance when a ledge of mortar gave way under him and left him hanging by his arms to the ivy. He felt in vain with his feet for some support, but could find none. Dig’s previous descent had knocked away most of the little ledges by which they had come up.Finally, by a desperate effort, he pulled himself up a few inches by the ivy and managed to get a footing again. But there he stuck. He could not go down further; and to go up would bring him no nearer Grandcourt than he was at present. So it was Arthur shouted; and everyone thought him an owl, and left him there in the rain to spend a pleasant evening on the top of the great window of Wellham Abbey.

Felgate, as we have said, had almost forgotten the existence of the sweep or the fact that he had given his name to the venture. When therefore Railsford unexpectedly walked into his study, he did not in any way connect the visit with that trivial incident. He conjured up in his mind any possible motive the master could have for this interview. He could only think of one, and perceiving a paper in Railsford’s hands, concluded that he had discovered the authorship of a certain anonymous letter addressed to Mr Bickers, and had looked in for a little explanation.

Felgate was quite prepared to gratify him, and promised himself a cheerful quarter of an hour over so congenial an occupation. He was, in consequence, considerably mortified when the real object of the visit unfolded itself.

“Felgate,” said Railsford, “I have come to you on very unpleasant business. This is not the first time I have had to caution you that your example in the house is neither worthy of a prefect nor a senior boy.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Felgate, with ostentatious indifference. He had better have remained silent, for Railsford dismissed whatever of mildness he had come armed with, and stood on his dignity.

“Don’t be impertinent, Felgate; it will do you no good. I want to know how it comes that your name appears here at the head of a list of entries for a sweepstake on a horse race, when you as a prefect know that gambling in any shape or form is strictly prohibited here?”

Felgate, taken back by this unexpected indictment, looked at the paper and laughed.

“I really don’t know how my name comes there. I can’t be supposed to know why anybody who likes should write my name down on a piece of paper.”

“You mean to say that you never entered your name?” asked Railsford, beginning to feel a sense of relief.

“Certainly not.”

“You were asked to do so? What did you reply?”

“I haven’t a notion. I probably said, don’t bother me—or do anything you like, or something of that sort.”

“Did you point out that it was against the rules?”

“No. Is it against the rules? There doesn’t seem any harm in it, if fellows choose to do it. Besides, it wasn’t for money.”

“Did you give six stamps?”

“Stamps? I fancy someone came to borrow some stamps of me a week or so ago. I forget who it was.”

“Felgate,” said the master with a tone of scorn which made the prefect wince, “it is hardly worth your while to tell lies when you can satisfy me of your guilt quite as easily by telling the truth. I won’t ask you more questions, for I have no wish to give you more opportunities of falsehood. Here are your six stamps. Go to Doctor Ponsford to-morrow at 8 p.m.”

Felgate looked blank at this announcement.

“What!” he exclaimed. “Go to the doctor? Are you going to tell him about a trifle like this?”

“It is no trifle for a prefect deliberately to break the school rules and encourage others to do so. I have said the same thing to you before.”

“Look here, Mr Railsford,” said Felgate, with a curious mixture of cringing and menace. “It’s not fair to send me to the doctor about a thing like this. I know you have a spite against me; but you can take it out of me without bringing him into it. I fancy if you knew all I know, you’d think twice before you did it.”

Railsford looked at him curiously.

“You surely forget, Felgate, that you are not speaking to a boy in the Shell.”

“No, I don’t. I know you’re a master, and head of a house, and a man who ought to be everything that’s right and good—”

“Come, come,” interrupted Railsford, “we have had enough of this. You are excited and forget yourself to talk in this foolish way.”

And he quitted the study.

What, he wondered, could be the meaning of all this wild outbreak on the part of the detected prefect? What did he mean by that “If you knew all I know”? It sounded like one of those vague menaces with which Arthur had been wont to garnish his utterances last term. What did Felgate know, beyond the secret of his own wrong-doings, which could possibly affect the Master of the Shell?

It flashed across Railsford suddenly—suggested perhaps by the connection of two ideas—that Arthur himself might be in some peril or difficulty. It was long since the master had attempted to control the secret of his prospective relationship with the vivacious young Shell-fish. Everybody knew about it as soon as ever he set foot in Grandcourt, and Daisy’s name was common property all over the house. Arthur had contrived to reap no small advantage from the connection. The prefects had pretty much left him alone, and, as a relative of the master, he had been tacitly winked at in many of his escapades, with a leniency which another boy could not have hoped for.

What if now Arthur should lie under the shadow of some peril which, if it fell, must envelop him and his brother-in-law both? If, for instance, he had committed some capital offence, which if brought to light should throw on him (Railsford) the terrible duty of nipping in the bud the school career of Daisy’s own brother? It seemed the only solution to Felgate’s mysterious threat, and it made him profoundly uncomfortable.

He felt he had not done all the might for the boy. He had been so scrupulously careful not to give any pretext for a charge of favouritism, that he had even neglected him at times. Now and then he had had a chat; but Arthur had such a painful way of getting into awkward topics that such conferences were usually short and formal. He had occasionally given an oversight to the boy’s work; but Arthur so greatly preferred to “mug,” as he called it, in his own study, that opportunities for serious private coaching had been quite rare.

Recently, too, a difference had sprung up between Arthur and Marky about the Smileys; and Railsford felt that he had not done all he might to smooth over that bitter memory and recover the loyalty and affection of the bereaved dog-fancier. It may have been some or all of these notions which prompted the master to invite his young kinsman to accompany him on the following day—being the mid-term holiday—on an expedition into the country.

The occasion had been chosen by the Grandcourt Naturalists’ Field Club for their yearly picnic. This club was a very select, and, by repute, dry institution, consisting partly of scientific boys and partly of masters. Its supposed object was to explore the surrounding country for geological, botanical, and historical specimens, which were, when found, deposited in a museum which nobody in the school on any pretext ever visited.

Every member had the privilege of introducing a friend, but no one took advantage of the invitation, except once a year, on the occasion of the annual picnic, when there was always a great rush, and a severe competition to be numbered among the happy participants of the club’s hospitality.

It was long since Arthur had given up all idea of joining these happy parties. Great therefore was his astonishment and delight when on the evening before the term holiday Railsford put his head into the study and said—

“Arthur, would you like to come to-morrow to the Field Club picnic at Wellham Abbey?”

“Rather,” said Arthur.

“Very well; be ready at ten. I’ve ordered a tandem tricycle.”

Arthur was in ecstasy. If there was one kind of spree he liked it was a picnic at an abbey; and if there was one sort of conveyance he doated on it was a tricycle. He wiped off every score on his mental slate against Marky, and voted him the greatest brick going, and worthy to be backed up to the very end—especially if they had oysters at the picnic!

“Wishyoucould come, old man,” said he to Dig, who was groaning over his 100 lines of Livy.

“I wouldn’t go with him if he asked me, the cad!” growled Dig.

“No, he’s not a cad. If it hadn’t been for him you wouldn’t have seen one of your stamps back; and you might have been expelled straight away into the bargain. Tell you what, Dig, you’ve been scouting for Stafford all the last week; he ought to do something for you. Why don’t you ask him to take you? He’ll do it, like a shot. He’s always civil to us.”

Dig thought it over.

“If he says Yes, will you help me polish off my lines?”

“All right. I say, go soon, or somebody else may have asked him.”

Dig went, and to his satisfaction was informed that Stafford would take him, if he promised to be steady. Which of course he did promise. So between them the two chums polished off the Livy—never was the great historian made such mincemeat of before or after—and then gave themselves over to delightful anticipations of the Field Club picnic.

One misgiving disturbed Arthur’s peace of mind. Railsford might make a base use of his opportunity as partner on the tricycle to corner him about his misdeeds and generally to “jaw” him. Besides, as Dig was going too, it would be ever so much jollier if Dig and he could go to Wellham together and let the masters go by themselves.

“We must work it somehow, Dig,” said Arthur. “If we go we must have a high old time—and not be let in for a lot of rot about old bones and fossils and that sort of thing.”

“Rather not,” said Dig, “though I wouldn’t mind if we could get hold of a skull. It would look prime on the mantelpiece.”

“Gammer, who went last year, says it was an awful go-to-meeting turn-out. Top-hats, and service at the abbey, and scarcely a bit of grub; but I hear the spread’s to be rather good this year, down by the river’s edge.”

“Hooroo!” said Dig, “I guess you and I will be about when they call over for that part of the spree.”

The morning was dull and cloudy, and Dig and Arthur as they stood on the hall steps and looked up at the sky, debated with themselves whether the day would hold up long enough to allow of the picnic at the water’s edge. To their relief, the other excursionists who gradually assembled took a hopeful view of the weather and predicted that it would be a fine afternoon, whatever the morning might be.

As they were Naturalist Field Club people, our boys supposed they knew what they were saying, and dismissed their qualms in consequence.

Wellham Abbey was ten miles off. Most of the party proposed to reach it on foot. Mr Roe was driving with the doctor and his niece, and one or two others, like Railsford, preferred to travel on wheels.

Dig was standing somewhat lugubriously beside Arthur, inspecting the tandem, and wondering how he was to get to Wellham, when Mr Grover came up and said to Railsford—

“How are you going, Railsford? Not in that concern, are you? Come and walk with me, I’ve not had a chat with you for ages.”

Arthur felt a violent dig in his ribs from the delighted baronet. There was a chance for the “high old time” yet.

“Well, the fact is, I’d promised one of my boys to give him the ride,” said the Master of the Shell.

“Oh, please don’t mind me,” said Arthur. “Oakshott and I can bring the machine for you to Wellham, if you’d sooner walk.”

“Is Oakshott going?”

“Yes, sir. Stafford’s asked him, hasn’t he, Dig?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve scouted for Stafford at cricket this term, so he’s asked me to-day; and I’ve done my lines, sir.”

“Oh, very well,” said Railsford, to whom the temptation of a walk with Grover was even greater than that of atête-à-têteride with Arthur Herapath; “but can you manage it?”

“Manage it?” exclaimed they, in tones as if they could scarcely believe they heard aright, “rather, sir.”

“Well,” said the master, tickled with the evident delight of the pair to be together, “take care how you go. You had better take the Grassen Road, so as to avoid the hill. Come along, Grover.”

So these two artful young “naturalists” had it their own way after all.

“Come on, sharp,” said Arthur, “and get out of the ruck.”

“Jolly good joke telling us not to go by Maiden Hill,” said Digby; “that’ll be the best part of the lark.”

Luckily a tandem tricycle of the type provided for them is not a machine which requires any very specially delicate riding. Had it been, Arthur and Dig might have been some time getting out of the “ruck,” as they politely termed the group of their pedestrian fellow-naturalists. For they were neither of them adepts; besides which, the tricycle being intended for a pair of full-grown men, they had some difficulty in keeping their saddles and working their treadles at one and the same time. They had to part company with the latter when they went down, and catch them flying as they came up; and the result was not always elegant or swift. However, they managed to pass muster in some sort, as they started off under the eye of their master, and as speedily as possible dodged their vehicle up a side lane, where, free from embarrassing publicity, they were at leisure to adapt their progress to their own convenience.

It wasn’t quite as much fun as they had expected. The machine was a heavy one, and laboured a good deal in its going. The treadles, as I have said, were very long; the brake did not always act, and the steering apparatus was stiff. Even the bell, in whose music they had promised themselves some solace, was out of tune; and the road was very like a ploughed field. The gaiety of the boys toned down into sobriety, and the sobriety into silence, and their silence into the ill-humour begotten of perspiration, dust, fatigue, and disappointment. Their high old time was not coming off!

At length, by mutual consent, they got off and began viciously to shove the machine up the hill.

“They’ll all be there already,” said Arthur, looking at his watch. “We’ve been two hours.”

“I wish I’d walked with them,” said Dig.

“Pity you didn’t,” growled Arthur, “you aren’t very lively company.”

“Anyhow, I’ve done my share of the fag. You and Marky may bring the beast home.”

This altercation might have proceeded to painful lengths, had not a diversion occurred in their arrival at the crest of the hill.

Any ordinary traveller would have stood and admired the beautiful view—the finest, it was said, in the county. But Arthur and Dig were in no humour for artistic raptures. The sight of the abbey towers peeping cut in the valley among the trees, and of the silver river which curled past it, suggested to them no thoughts of historic grandeur—no meditations on the pathetic beauty of ruin. It made them smell oysters and hear the popping of lemonade corks, and reminded them they had still two long miles to go before lunch.

“Get on, sharp,” said Arthur, climbing into his saddle, “it won’t take us long to go down the hill.”

It didn’t! They did the distance, a mile and a half, in about three minutes. The brake came to grief the moment they started, and they had nothing for it but to hold on and let her fly. As to attempting to control the speed with their feet, they were thankful enough to get those members up on the rest out of reach of the treadles, which plunged up and down like the pistons of a steam-engine. Luckily there was nothing on the road; luckily, too, the ruts which had broken the ground on the other side were for the most part absent on this. Once or twice the machine lurched ominously, and they thought all was up, and once or twice a stone or obstacle ahead promised to terminate finally their headlong career. But the gallant tandem cleared them all, and her passengers clutched on to their handles like grim death; and between them they did the distance in some seconds under the record, and ran a clean half-mile on the level at the foot of the hill before they could bring one of the most famous runs of the season to a standstill. Thanks to this rapid performance they were only about a quarter of an hour after the pedestrians at the abbey.

“Well, here you are,” said Railsford; “you came by Grassen, I suppose? Rather rough riding, wasn’t it?”

“We came by Maiden Hill after all,” said Arthur. “Itwasrather rough.”

“Did you walk down, then?”

“No, we rode it. We came down in pretty good time. There’s something the matter with the brake, so we had to let her go.”

Possibly Railsford had a better notion of the narrow escape of the two hare-brained young guests of the club than they had themselves. They forgot all about it the moment they saw a hamper being carried in the direction of the river and heard Mr Roe announce that they might as well have lunch now, and explore the abbey afterwards.

“Hear, hear,” whispered Dig to his friend. “Eh?”

“Rather,” said Arthur.

And they were invaluable in spreading the repast and hastening the moment when Mr Roe at last announced that they were all ready to begin.

It was rather an imposing company. The doctor was there, and his niece, and Messrs Roe, Grover, Railsford, and one or two other masters. Smedley also was present, very attentive to Miss Violet; and Clipstone was there, as well as our friends Ainger, Barnworth, and Stafford. And all the learned luminaries of the Fifth were there, too, and one or two scientists from the Fourth. Arthur and Dig had rarely been in such good company, and had certainly never before realised how naturalists can eat. It was a splendid spread, and the two chums, snugly entrenched behind a rampart of hampers, drowned their sorrows and laid their dust in lemonade, and recruited their minds and bodies with oysters and cold beef, and rolls and jam tarts, till the profession of a naturalist seemed to them to be one of the most glorious in all this glorious world.

“Now,” said Mr Roe, who was president of the club and host, “let us go and see the abbey. I have put together a few notes on its history and architecture, which I thought might be useful. Let us go first to the Saxon crypt, which is unquestionably the oldest portion of the structure.”

“Oh, lag all that,” said Dig to his friend. “Are you going to hear all that rot?”

“Not if I know it,” replied Arthur. “We’d better lie low, and help wash up the plates, and when they’re gone we can go for a spin up the big window.”

So, when Mr Roe, having collected his little audience round him, began to descant with glowing countenance on the preciousness of some fragments of a reputed Druidical font lately dug up in the crypt, two naturalists, who should have been hanging on his lips, were busy polishing up the plates and the remnants of the repast, at the water’s edge, and watching their chance for a “spin” up the ruined arch of the great window. That window in its day must have been one of the finest abbey windows in England. It still stood erect, covered with ivy, while all around it walls, towers, and roof had crumbled into dust. Some of the slender stone framework still dropped gracefully from the Gothic arch, and at the apex of all there still adhered a foot or two of the sturdy masonry of the old belfry.

No boy could look up to that lofty platform, standing out clear against the grey sky, without feeling his feet tingle. Certainly Arthur and Dig were not proof against its fascination.

The first part of the climb, up the tumbled walls and along the ivy-covered buttresses, was easy enough. The few sparrows and swallows bustling out from the ivy at their approach had often been similarly disturbed before. But when they reached the point where the great arch, freeing itself, as it were, of its old supports, sprung in one clear sweep skyward, their difficulties began. The treacherous stones more than once crumbled under their feet, and had it not been for the sustaining ivy, they would have come down with a run too.

“You see,” said Mr Roe to his admiring audience below, “the work of dissolution is still rapidly going on. These stones have fallen from the great arch since we came here.”

“Regular jerry-builders they must have had in those days,” growled Dig, scrambling up the last few yards; “did you ever see such rotten walls?”

Arthur confessed he hadn’t; but having gained the top, he forgave the builders. Rarely had Dig and he been so pleased with themselves and one another. It was a genuine feat of climbing, of which very few could boast; and peril and achievement bind friends together as no mortar ever binds bricks.

“That window,” said Mr Roe, looking up from below, “is considered inaccessible. It is said to be haunted; but the truth is, I believe, that it is infested by owls.”

Here a faint “boo-hoo!” from above bore sudden and striking testimony to the truth of the master’s observations.

“Hullo!” said Arthur, peering over, “they’re going. Look sharp down, Dig, or we’ll be left.”

Dig obeyed. It was much more difficult getting down than getting up. Still, by dint of clinging tight hold of the ivy and feeling every step, he managed to descend the perilous arch and get on to the comparatively safe footing of the buttress.

“You cut on,” shouted Arthur from above, “I’ll be down in a second. Don’t wait—I have found an owl’s nest up here; and I’m going to collar a young ’un for each of us. Don’t tell them. If Railsford asks where I am, tell him I’m walking home. You can go with him on the tandem. I’ll be home as soon as you.”

At the same moment a shout from below of “Herapath!” “Oakshott!” still further hastened Dig’s descent toterra firma.

“Come on,” said Railsford, who was already seated on the tricycle, “it’s coming on to rain. Where’s Herapath?”

“Oh, he’s walking home. He told me to tell you so. We’ve been scrambling about. Can I come in the tandem?”

“If he’s not coming you can. Has he gone on, then?”

“No—he was just getting a—a specimen,” said Dig, hopping up on the saddle, and resolving that Marky should do all the work. “He says he’d sooner walk.”

“Dear me! here comes the rain,” said Railsford, turning up his collar, “we’d better go on. He’ll get wet, whichever way he comes home.”

So they departed—as also did Mr Roe and the doctor and all the others.

“There’s an owl again,” said Mr Roe, looking back at the big window.

He was wrong. The shout he heard was from Arthur; not this time in sport, but in grim earnest. For, having abandoned the idea of capturing the owls, he had started to descend the arch. He had safely accomplished half the distance when a ledge of mortar gave way under him and left him hanging by his arms to the ivy. He felt in vain with his feet for some support, but could find none. Dig’s previous descent had knocked away most of the little ledges by which they had come up.

Finally, by a desperate effort, he pulled himself up a few inches by the ivy and managed to get a footing again. But there he stuck. He could not go down further; and to go up would bring him no nearer Grandcourt than he was at present. So it was Arthur shouted; and everyone thought him an owl, and left him there in the rain to spend a pleasant evening on the top of the great window of Wellham Abbey.

Back to IndexNext