The Loom of Youth Part 30

"Oh, well, you see, sir, all the School House fellows had sworn to lay him out!"

"You must not talk like that, Jack. It is not sporting. And it stirs up ill feeling in the school. You can't honestly believe that any gentleman would play a game in that spirit. You have no proof of what you say except mere rumour, I suppose. You mustn't talk like that."

"The Bull" was not at all pleased, and walked away to turn out the light. Whitaker saw he had gone too far and had said more than he meant to. But he couldn't stand the idea that "the Bull" should think he had been repeating merely idle chatter.

"But, sir, I know for certain that in the Christy's match the School House men were offering money to Christy's to lay Hazlitt out."

Buller stopped with his hand on the gas-tap.

"That is a very serious accusation, Jack. Are you telling me that any Fernhurst boys so lack sportsmanlike feeling as to bribe boys in other houses to lay out their rivals, so that it will be easier for them to win."

"Oh, sir, I don't think that they meant that."

"Well, you said it, at any rate."

The gas went out suddenly. "The Bull" strode out without saying good-night. In his study he turned over in his mind the extraordinary story he had heard. If what Jack had told him was the truth, Fernhurst football, which was to him, and to many others, the finest thing in the world, had become little better than league professionalism. Bribes were being offered for men to be laid out. He had never heard of such a thing. There was no one to remind him that the offering of bribes means little to a schoolboy, and the mere talk of "laying people out" still less. It is all a question of custom, of the sense in which phrases are used by the particular speakers who use them.

There are certain words which to-day are vulgar and disgusting, but which in the days of Shakespeare would have been used in any company without a blush. And this is so merely because time has given the words a different significance. Indeed, from the point of view of the average person, to leave schoolmasters out of the question, the idea of offering bribes to lay out athletes is revolting. And so it is. It is unsportsmanlike, unworthy of English traditions. But when Gordon offered Burgoyne a s.h.i.+lling to lay out Hazlitt, although he said it was a bargain, he meant nothing at all by his offer. He knew that Burgoyne, once he got on the field, could think of nothing but the game, and would forget all about Hazlitt and himself. Everyone offered bribes, but no one had been known to receive a penny of them. Still, Buller could not be expected to know this. He saw in the affair a menace to the future of Fernhurst sport. Jack's story might be only idle chatter, or it might have some foundation. At any rate he had got to go to the bottom, and sift out the truth for the good of Fernhurst.

After evening chapel on the Sunday before the match the Chief sent for Gordon; when Gordon arrived he found Harding, the head of the House, there too. The Chief looked worried. There was a row in prospect. Gordon racked his brain to think of anything that could possibly have been found out about him. Of course there were many old troubles that might have been raked up. He had always realised that the hand of the past would still be near the shoulder of the present. Yet, what had he been doing recently?

"Isn't Hazelton coming, Harding?" The Chief was speaking.

"Yes, sir; but I believe he is collecting chapel cards."

Hazelton too. Complications, forsooth. There was an awkward pause. Then Hazelton came in, quite at his ease.

"Sir, the chapel cards; and I believe you wanted to see me, sir?"

"Ah, yes, Hazelton; put the cards on my desk. Now, Caruthers, I want to ask you a question before the head and captain of the House that I hope you will answer truthfully. Did you offer a boy in Mr Christy's house money to 'lay out,' I believe that was the phrase, a boy in Mr Buller's house in the recent house match."

Gordon thought for a moment. Had he? It was quite likely he had; but he could not remember. Then the scene came back. The crowd in front of the pavilion. Burgoyne: Hazlitt in the offing.

"Yes, sir," he replied, after the instant's hesitation.

"You seem rather doubtful about it."

"Well, sir, I was trying to remember whether I had or not."

The Chief was nettled by such apparent callousness.

"You talk as if you were in the habit of offering such rewards. Are you?"

"Well, sir, it is the sort of thing any fellow might do."

"That is neither here nor there. I doubt the truth of your statement very much. But even if the school had become so generally demoralised as you suggest, that would not be any excuse for you. As a matter of fact, how much did you offer the boy?"

"A s.h.i.+lling, sir."

"Was that a genuine offer, now? If he had done what you wanted him to, would you have paid him?"

Gordon was now well out of his depth. Explanation seemed impossible. Had the offer been genuine? He supposed it had. If the tick had been laid out, Gordon would have been so delighted that he would have stood the whole of Christy's drinks all round.

"Yes, sir," he said quite cheerfully.

A smile that rose to Hazelton's lips was instantly suppressed.

"Ah! rather like hiring a.s.sa.s.sins in the cheap novelettes. What was your idea? Did you think Hazlitt would have been a help to the School side?"

"No, sir. I hardly think he would have been of much a.s.sistance to them."

The idea of Hazlitt being of any use to anyone was very amusing. Gordon always saw the funny side of everything. As a ghost, he would probably have found something cynically amusing in his own funeral.

"Then you did it merely out of spite, I suppose. Do you consider that the football field is a suitable opportunity for the paying-off of old scores?"

Now, suppose Gordon had poured out the story of how Felston had sworn to lay him out in the Three c.o.c.k, and how Hazlitt and others had flung the words "Three c.o.c.k" into his face for half a term, it would have been certainly an extenuation. But he realised that Hazelton was present. It would not be the proper thing, it would indeed be unpardonable cheek, for him to talk in the presence of the House captain as though his chances of playing in the Three c.o.c.k were to be taken for granted. It would be madness to imperil his chances on the football field, merely because he wanted an excuse for a silly little row.

And so he did not answer.

"Well, Caruthers, I sha'n't want you any more. Thank you for being so frank in the matter. As far as I can see, it is the only extenuating circ.u.mstance. Harding, Hazelton, one minute."

Gordon returned to the studies amused rather than disconcerted. He quite saw that the Chief, with his high ideals, would refuse to allow two blacks to make a white, even if that black were of the grey-black shade of which colour boys were allowed to get their school suits made, and which produced anything from light grey to dark brown. He understood and respected the Chief's point of view entirely. But with "the Bull" he was furious. No one but "the Bull" could have reported him; and, "the Bull"

after all, was an old Fernhurstian. He knew the school customs, and unless his memory was decaying, must have remembered the wild way in which boys boast. He must have known it; but "for the sake of Fernhurst," Buller would say, "this leprosy has to be rooted out."

Gordon began to wonder whether it was really a love of Fernhurst that was his standard for all actions, or simply a supreme egotism, which embraced alternately his own interest, his house's interest, and Fernhurst's interest, but never, under any circ.u.mstances, never the School House interest!

Hazelton thought much the same. At the Chief's request he made a characteristic speech to the House after prayers.

"Someone who imagines himself a sportsman, and who refuses to disclose his name, but whose ident.i.ty we can only guess at, has been making some silly remarks about certain play and behaviour in the House. Of course that is all rot. But people have strange ideas, especially those in authority, and we have to be very careful. So for heaven's sake don't go shouting out that you are going to lay everyone out. It only means a row, and, after all, you can do it just as well without talking about it."

There was a roar of laughter; the old system survived.

Next morning in break Gordon pa.s.sed Buller on his way to the tuck-shop.

"The Bull" cut him dead.

The day after, the Chief having made up his mind on the matter, told Gordon that his Sixth Form privileges had been taken away.

Before a large crowd, in full view of Chief's study window, Gordon that afternoon burnt his straw hat with the Sixth form ribbon on it, and stood over the smouldering ashes proclaiming in tragic tones: "The glory has departed from Israel." His old pa.s.sion for a theatrical piece of rodomontade was not yet subdued.

For a short time Gordon was rather worried about "l'affaire Hazlitt," as Tester called it. But he soon forgot it entirely in the excitement of the approaching match. Everyone talked about it; there was no other topic of conversation. The night before the match Lovelace could not sit still for a minute. He strode up and down the study murmuring to himself: "We can't lose; we can't; we can't!" Someone looked in to ask if he was going to prepare the Livy.

"Livy?" he gasped. "Who could do any work the night before a house match?"

The someone retired discomforted.

"You know it's absurd," Lovelace went on, "for a master to imagine anyone could do work when the house matches are on. The other day Claremont had me up and asked me why my work had been so bad lately. I told him that the house matches were so exciting that I could not concentrate my mind on anything else. He looked at me vacantly and said: 'Well, are they really? I don't know whom they excite; they don't excite me.'"