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'WE, THE UNDERSIGNED--'
Norris kept his word with regard to the Bishop's exclusion from theEleven. The team which had beaten the O.B.s had not had the benefit ofhis assistance, Lorimer appearing in his stead. Lorimer was a fastright-hand bowler, deadly in House matches or on a very bad wicket. Hewas the mainstay of the Second Eleven attack, and in an ordinary yearwould have been certain of his First Eleven cap. This season, however,with Gosling, Baynes, and the Bishop, the School had been unusuallystrong, and Lorimer had had to wait.
The non-appearance of his name on the notice-board came as no surpriseto Gethryn. He had had the advantage of listening to Norris's views onthe subject. But when Marriott grasped the facts of the case, he wentto Norris and raved. Norris, as is right and proper in the captain of aSchool team when the wisdom of his actions is called into question,treated him with no respect whatever.
'It's no good talking,' he said, when Marriott had finished a briskopening speech, 'I know perfectly well what I'm doing.'
'Then there's no excuse for you at all,' said Marriott. 'If you weremad or delirious I could understand it.'
'Come and have an ice,' said Norris.
'Ice!' snorted Marriott. 'What's the good of standing there babblingabout ices! Do you know we haven't beaten the O.B.s for four years?'
'We shall beat them this year.'
'Not without Gethryn.'
'We certainly shan't beat them with Gethryn, because he's not going toplay. A chap who chooses the day of the M.C.C. match to go off for theafternoon, and then refuses to explain, can consider himself jolly wellchucked until further notice. Feel ready for that ice yet?'
'Don't be an ass.'
'Well, if ever you do get any ice, take my tip and tie it carefullyround your head in a handkerchief. Then perhaps you'll be able to seewhy Gethryn isn't playing against the O.B.s on Saturday.'
And Marriott went off raging, and did not recover until late in theafternoon, when he made eighty-three in an hour for Leicester's Housein a scratch game.
There were only three of the eleven Houses whose occupants seriouslyexpected to see the House cricket cup on the mantelpiece of theirdining-room at the end of the season. These were the School House,Jephson's, and Leicester's. In view of Pringle's sensational featsthroughout the term, the knowing ones thought that the cup would go tothe School House, with Leicester's runners-up. The various members ofthe First Eleven were pretty evenly distributed throughout the threeHouses. Leicester's had Gethryn, Reece, and Marriott. Jephson's reliedon Norris, Bruce, and Baker. The School House trump card was Pringle,with Lorimer and Baynes to do the bowling, and Hill of the First Elevenand Kynaston and Langdale of the second to back him up in the battingdepartment. Both the other First Eleven men were day boys.
The presence of Gosling in any of the House elevens, however weak onpaper, would have lent additional interest to the fight for the cup;for in House matches, where every team has more or less of a tail, onereally good fast bowler can make a surprising amount of difference to aside.
There was a great deal of interest in the School about the House cup.The keenest of all games at big schools are generally the Housematches. When Beckford met Charchester or any of the four schools whichit played at cricket and football, keenness reached its highest pitch.But next to these came the House matches.
Now that he no longer played for the Eleven, the Bishop was able togive his whole mind to training the House team in the way it should go.Exclusion from the First Eleven meant also that he could no longer,unless possessed of an amount of _sang-froid_ so colossal asalmost to amount to genius, put in an appearance at the First Elevennet. Under these circumstances Leicester's net summoned him. Like MrPhil May's lady when she was ejected (with perfect justice) by abarman, he went somewhere where he would be respected. To the House,then, he devoted himself, and scratch games and before-breakfastfield-outs became the order of the day.
House fielding before breakfast is one of the things which cannot beclassed under the head of the Lighter Side of Cricket. You get up inthe small hours, dragged from a comfortable bed by some sportsman who,you feel, carries enthusiasm to a point where it ceases to be a virtueand becomes a nuisance. You get into flannels, and, still half asleep,stagger off to the field, where a hired ruffian hits you up catcheswhich bite like serpents and sting like adders. From time to time headds insult to injury by shouting 'get to 'em!', 'get to 'em!'--aremark which finds but one parallel in the language, the 'keep moving'of the football captain. Altogether there are many more pleasantoccupations than early morning field-outs, and it requires aconsiderable amount of keenness to carry the victim through themwithout hopelessly souring his nature and causing him to fosteruncharitable thoughts towards his House captain.
J. Monk of Leicester's found this increased activity decidedlyuncongenial. He had no real patriotism in him. He played cricket well,but he played entirely for himself.
If, for instance, he happened to make fifty in a match--and it happenedfairly frequently--he vastly preferred that the rest of the side shouldmake ten between them than that there should be any more half-centurieson the score sheet, even at the expense of losing the match. It was notlikely, therefore, that he would take kindly to this mortification ofthe flesh, the sole object of which was to make everybody asconspicuous as everybody else. Besides, in the matter of fielding heconsidered that he had nothing to learn, which, as Euclid would say,was absurd. Fielding is one of the things which is never perfect.
Monk, moreover, had another reason for disliking the field-outs.Gethryn, as captain of the House team, was naturally master of theceremonies, and Monk objected to Gethryn. For this dislike he had solidreasons. About a fortnight after the commencement of term, the Bishop,going downstairs from his study one afternoon, was aware of whatappeared to be a species of free fight going on in the doorway of thesenior day-room. The senior day-room was where the rowdy element of theHouse collected, the individuals who were too old to be fags, and toolow down in the School to own studies.
Under ordinary circumstances the Bishop would probably have passed onwithout investigating the matter. A head of a house hates above allthings to get a name for not minding his own business in unimportantmatters. Such a reputation tells against him when he has to put hisfoot down over big things. To have invaded the senior day-room andstopped a conventional senior day-room 'rag' would have beeninterfering with the most cherished rights of the citizens, the freedomwhich is the birthright of every Englishman, so to speak.
But as he passed the door which had just shut with a bang behind thefree fighters, he heard Monk's voice inside, and immediately afterwardsthe voice of Danvers, and he stopped. In the first place, he reasonedwithin himself, if Monk and Danvers were doing anything, it wasprobably something wrong, and ought to be stopped. Gethryn always hadthe feeling that it was his duty to go and see what Monk and Danverswere doing, and tell them they mustn't. He had a profound belief intheir irreclaimable villainy. In the second place, having studies oftheir own, they had no business to be in the senior day-room at all. Itwas contrary to the etiquette of the House for a study man to enter thesenior day-room, and as a rule the senior day-room resented it. As toall appearances they were not resenting it now, the obvious conclusionwas that something was going on which ought to cease.
The Bishop opened the door. Etiquette did not compel the head of theHouse to knock, the rule being that you knocked only at the doors ofthose senior to you in the House. He was consequently enabled towitness a tableau which, if warning had been received of his coming,would possibly have broken up before he entered. In the centre of thegroup was Wilson, leaning over the study table, not so much as if heliked so leaning as because he was held in that position by Danvers. Inthe background stood Monk, armed with a walking-stick. Round the wallswere various ornaments of the senior day-room in attitudes of expectantattention, being evidently content to play the part of 'friends andretainers', leaving the leading parts in the hands of Monk and hiscolleague.
'Hullo,' said the Bishop, 'what's going on?'
'It's all right, old chap,' said Monk, grinning genially, 'we're onlyhaving an execution.'
'What's the row?' said the Bishop. 'What's Wilson been doing?'
'Nothing,' broke in that youth, who had wriggled free from Danvers'sclutches. 'I haven't done a thing, Gethryn. These beasts lugged me outof the junior day-room without saying what for or anything.'
The Bishop began to look dangerous. This had all the outward aspect ofa case of bullying. Under Reynolds's leadership Leicester's had gone inrather extensively for bullying, and the Bishop had waited hungrily fora chance of catching somebody actively engaged in the sport, so that hemight drop heavily on that person and make life unpleasant for him.
'Well?' he said, turning to Monk, 'let's have it. What was it allabout, and what have you got to do with it?'
Monk began to shuffle.
'Oh, it was nothing much,' he said.
'Then what are you doing with the stick?' pursued the Bishoprelentlessly.
'Young Wilson cheeked Perkins,' said Monk.
Murmurs of approval from the senior day-room. Perkins was one of theornaments referred to above.
'How?' asked Gethryn.
Wilson dashed into the conversation again.
'Perkins told me to go and get him some grub from the shop. I was doingsome work, so I couldn't. Besides, I'm not his fag. If Perkins wants togo for me, why doesn't he do it himself, and not get about a hundredfellows to help him?'
'Exactly,' said the Bishop. 'A very sensible suggestion. Perkins, fallupon Wilson and slay him. I'll see fair play. Go ahead.'
'Er--no,' said Perkins uneasily. He was a small, weedy-looking youth,not built for fighting except by proxy, and he remembered the episodeof Wilson and Skinner.
'Then the thing's finished,' said Gethryn. 'Wilson walks over. Weneedn't detain you, Wilson.'
Wilson departed with all the honours of war, and the Bishop turned toMonk.
'Now perhaps you'll tell me,' he said, 'what the deuce you and Danversare doing here?'
'Well, hang it all, old chap--'
The Bishop begged that Monk would not call him 'old chap'.
'I'll call you "sir", if you like,' said Monk.
A gleam of hope appeared in the Bishop's eye. Monk was going to givehim the opportunity he had long sighed for. In cold blood he couldattack no one, not even Monk, but if he was going to be rude, thataltered matters.
'What business have you in the day-room?' he said. 'You've got studiesof your own.'
'If it comes to that,' said Monk, 'so have you. We've got as muchbusiness here as you. What the deuce are you doing here?'
Taken by itself, taken neat, as it were, this repartee might have beeninsufficient to act as a _casus belli_, but by a mercifuldispensation of Providence the senior day-room elected to laugh at theremark, and to laugh loudly. Monk also laughed. Not, however, for long.The next moment the Bishop had darted in, knocked his feet from underhim, and dragged him to the door. Captain Kettle himself could not havedone it more neatly.
'Now,' said the Bishop, 'we can discuss the point.'
Monk got up, looking greener than usual, and began to dust his clothes.
'Don't talk rot,' he said, 'I can't fight a prefect.'
This, of course, the Bishop had known all along. What he had intendedto do if Monk had kept up his end he had not decided when he embarkedupon the engagement. The head of a House cannot fight by-battles withhis inferiors without the loss of a good deal of his painfully acquireddignity. But Gethryn knew Monk, and he had felt justified in riskingit. He improved the shining hour with an excursus on the subject ofbullying, dispensed a few general threats, and left the room.
Monk had--perhaps not unnaturally--not forgotten the incident, and nowthat public opinion ran strongly against Gethryn on account of hisM.C.C. match manoeuvres, he acted. A mass meeting of the Mob was calledin his study, and it was unanimously voted that field-outs in themorning were undesirable, and that it would be judicious if the teamwere to strike. Now, as the Mob included in their numbers eight of theHouse Eleven, their opinions on the subject carried weight.
'Look here,' said Waterford, struck with a brilliant idea, 'I tell youwhat we'll do. Let's sign a round-robin refusing to play in the Housematches unless Gethryn resigns the captaincy and the field-outs stop.'
'We may as well sign in alphabetical order,' said Monk prudently.'It'll make it safer.'
The idea took the Mob's fancy. The round-robin was drawn up and signed.
'Now, if we could only get Reece,' suggested Danvers. 'It's no goodasking Marriott, but Reece might sign.'
'Let's have a shot at any rate,' said Monk.
And a deputation, consisting of Danvers, Waterford, and Monk, dulywaited upon Reece in his study, and broached the project to him.
A Prefect's Uncle Page 12