The Loom of Youth Part 29

CHAPTER IV: THIRDS

There was only one thing that at all worried Gordon just now, and that was the behaviour of the Hazlitt brethren. Mention has already been made of this couple. During their first few terms they gave every promise of developing into the very worst types that ba.n.a.lity and athletic success can produce, and these expectations had been abundantly fulfilled. The elder brother had his points, but they were few, the chief one being that he was fairly good at games, which, after all, is but a negative quality. But the younger, who was as useless as he was generally officious, was entirely devoid of any redeeming feature. His ways were the ways of a slum child playing in the gutter, and his sense of humour was limited to shouting rude remarks after other people, knocking off hats, and then running away. His language was foul enough to disgust even a Public School's taste. Gordon loathed him. One evening he and Lovelace discussed the child.

"Look here," said Gordon, "it's no good, this. That unutterable little tick Hazlitt knocked off my hat as I was looking at the notice-board to-day, and I am not going to stand it. By the time I had turned round he was half-way across the courts."

"The little swine! He is not fit to be in a decent school. If he can't get rid of the habits he learnt with street cads in the holidays of his own accord, he'll have to be kicked out of them. We will wait for him one day, and if we see him knock a School House straw off, my G.o.d, we will boot him to blazes!"

"Right you are. It won't be bullying. It will be treating a dirty beast in the only way he can understand."

About three days later, from their study window, they saw Hazlitt minor proceeding to the notice-board after lunch. They left their study and walked into the cloisters.

Hazlitt minor read the notices, discovered that, as he was posted on no game, he must of necessity take himself to the "pick-up," and then looked round. Davenham was conscientiously perusing a notice, although there was no likelihood of his own name appearing on any. (It is almost true to say that n.o.body looked at the board except the people about whom there are no notices to read.) There was an announcement four days old to the effect that C.J. Mansell had been presented with his First Fifteen colours. Davenham seemed to find it vastly interesting. Hazlitt stole up behind, and knocked his hat flying across the cloister. In a second Gordon and Lovelace were on him. They did not care in the very least what happened to Davenham. He played no part in their life. But a School House man had been "cheeked" by a filthy little outhouse swab.

These aliens had to be taught their place.

"What do you mean by that, you awful tick?" shouted Lovelace. "Davenham, go and fetch a hockey stick from Tester's study."

Hazlitt let out with his feet and caught Gordon on the ankle, but the horrible hack he got in return quieted him.

Davenham appeared with a hockey stick.

Gordon managed to get Hazlitt's head between his knees, and Lovelace began to give that worthy a beating he was never likely to forget. In a few minutes he was blubbering for mercy. Fletcher pa.s.sed by.

"Here you are, Archie," yelled Gordon; "come and have a shot at this swine Hazlitt; we are teaching him that he can't go about knocking off School House hats with impunity."

"Right you are, my lads."

By the time Archie had finished, Hazlitt had almost collapsed. Gordon let him go, and with a hefty boot sent him flying into the cloisters.

"I don't think we shall have any more of him for a bit," said Lovelace, with satisfaction.

"No; these outhouse lads want showing their place from time to time. The School House, after all, is _the_ place. We are like Rome, the mother city; the other outhouses are merely provinces of ours. Jolly good of us to let them use our buildings at all. Come and change; we have done a good deed, my friends."

But the matter did not end there. That evening in Buller's dormitories Hazlitt told a story of how Caruthers had been bullying him for no reason, and hacking him till he could hardly sit down. He left out Lovelace's name, because Lovelace was popular with the Buller's crowd.

News of this reached Felston, the second prefect. He fumed with rage, and sought Gregory, the Buller's house captain.

"Have you heard the latest? That swine Caruthers has been bullying Hazlitt. He drove him all round the cloisters, hitting him with a hockey stick."

"Good G.o.d, the swine! Did he really! My word, I'll lay him out in the Three c.o.c.k. You wait, that's all. When he plays in the Three c.o.c.k, I'll lay him out for dead in the first ten minutes."

In due course this story found its way to the Buller's day-room, where was great rejoicing. So Caruthers was going to be laid out, was he? How d.a.m.ned funny! Hazlitt's heart leapt within him. His evil little mind pictured Gordon being carried off the field, absolutely smashed up. He gloated.

Gordon laughed when he heard of it.

"Oh, well, at any rate I shall have my shot at them first in the Thirds and Two c.o.c.k."

He was secretly rather pleased to see that even his enemies had not the slightest doubt about his getting a place in the Three c.o.c.k. A House cap was just then his great ambition. But for all that he suffered considerable annoyance. Whenever he went up to the tuck-shop a voice from the Buller's doorway croaked: "Wait for the Three c.o.c.k!"

At first it was rather amusing. But soon it got distinctly tiresome.

Deep in his heart he cursed the tick Hazlitt and the whole Buller crowd.

A joke could be carried to an extreme. And it slowly dawned on him that, if he did play in the Three c.o.c.k, he was in for a remarkably thin time.

Almost the last words he heard as the eight-forty swept out of Fernhurst station on the last morning, with its waving hands and shoutings, was a shriek from the Buller's day-room: "Wait for the Three c.o.c.k!" Gordon laughed for a second, and then looked bored. The jest had ceased to have a shred of humour left upon it. It was naked and ought to be ashamed.

The Easter term opened in the conventional way with rain, slush and influenza. The fields were flooded, the country a lake; the bare branches dripped incessantly. But for all that the first round of the Thirds began on the first Sat.u.r.day.

Buller's drew Rogers's. There was no doubt as to the result. It would be a walk-over for Buller's, though Burgoyne might get over the line once or twice.

There was a crowd in front of the pavilion.

"Well, do something, at any rate," said Gordon. "Don't let Buller's get above themselves. You keep them in order."

"Oh yes, we'll sit on them!" laughed Burgoyne. "By the way, I think it would be rather a good scheme to lay out Hazlitt minor, don't you?"

Never did any forward in any house match at Fernhurst take the field without the sworn intention of laying out some hated opponent.

Nevertheless during the whole time Gordon was at school only one boy was hurt so badly that he had to leave the field. And that was an accident.

He broke his collar-bone, falling over by the goal-posts. It had become almost a custom to state whom you were going to lay out before the match. The idea sounds brutal, but it never led to anything. Gordon knew this as well as anyone.

"Good man! And look here, if you do, I'll give you a bob."

"A bargain?"

"Of course."

"Right, my lad. We will have a good supper to-night in my study."

The match followed the ordinary course. Frenzied juniors rushed up and down the touch-line inarticulate with excitement; the bloods, strolling arm in arm, patronised the game mildly. Buller's won very easily.

Hazlitt played quite decently and scored once. Burgoyne went supperless.

The second and third rounds were played; everywhere Buller's triumphed.

No house was beaten by less than forty points. Not a try was scored against them. Christy's, who had lost by forty-four points to nil, had, as the least unsuccessful house, the doubtful honour of joining forces with Buller's to play the School House in the final.

The betting was fairly even. Buller's thought they would win; the House, as usual, was certain of victory. The school expected a level game, and on the whole wanted to see a School House win. Buller's had had too much success of late years; and envy was inevitably at work.

The selection of the combined outhouse side caused a lot of consideration. There was once an idea of playing Hazlitt minor, but much to the annoyance of the House this plan was, from the outhouse point of view, wisely dropped. And now Jack Whitaker--he was always known as Jack--enters the story.

Jack was a very decent sort of kid, much (in the School House estimation) above the standard of Buller's day-room. He was a little rowdy and ostentatious, but had the justification of being really good at something. He was a promising half-back, and his cricket was so good that there was talk of his getting a trial for the School Eleven. Gordon and he got on rather well. But he was very young; under fifteen, in fact, and very impetuous.

About a week before the Thirds "the Bull" was discussing the match in the dormitories. Jack was very full of words.

"I say, sir, isn't it awfully lucky for Hazlitt that he is not playing?"

"The Bull" was surprised. Only that evening he had been talking with Hazlitt, and telling him how sorry he was that there was no place for him in the side.

"Why, Jack? I don't know what you mean."