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“Ostler’s lad,” said one satirist.
“Nineteenth groom,” from another.
“The tiger!” piped a smaller boy than Jan. “The tiger that sits behind the dog-cart – see how he folds his arms!”
And the imp folded his at the most untimely moment; for this was more than Jan was going to stand. Submission to superior force was a law of nature which his common sense recognised and his self-control enabled him to keep; but to take from a boy inches shorter than himself what had to be taken from one as many inches taller, just because they were all against him, was further than his forbearance would go. His flat left hand flew out as the smaller boy folded his arms, and it fell with a resounding smack upon the side of an undefended head.
Within the fewest possible moments Jan had been pinned against the palings by the bigger fellows, his arm twisted, his person violently kicked, his own ears soundly boxed and filled with abuse. This was partly because he fought and kicked as long as he had a free leg or arm. But through it all the satisfaction of that one resounding smack survived, and kept the infuriated Jan just sane enough to stop short of tooth and nail when finally overwhelmed.
“Tiger’s the word,” panted Shockley, when they were about done with him. “But if you try playing the tiger here, ever again, you son of a gun, you’ll be killed by inches, as sure as you’re blubbing now! So you’d better creep into your lair, you young tiger, and lie down and die like a mangy dog!”
It had taken some minutes to produce the tears, but the tears did not quench the fierce animosity of the eyes that shed them, and they were dry before Jan gained his study and slammed the door. And there you may picture him in the chair at the table, on the still bare boards: hot, dishevelled, aching and ashamed, yet rejoicing in his misery at the one shrewd left-hand smack he had somehow administered upon an impudent though defenceless head.
He could hear it for his consolation all the afternoon!
The studies emptied; it was another belated summer’s day, and there was a game worth watching on the Upper. Soon there was no sound to be heard but those from the street, which came through the upper part of the ground-glass window, the only part of the back study windows that was made to open; but Jan sat staring at the wall before his eyes, as though the fresh air was nothing to him, as though he had not been brought up in his shirtsleeves in and out of the open air in all weathers… And so he was still sitting when a hesitating step came along the passage, paused in the next study, and then, but not for a minute or two, at Jan’s door.
“What do you want?” he demanded rudely, when he had responded to a half-hearted knock by admitting Chips Carpenter. Now, Chips had witnessed just the bitter end of the scene in the quad, but Jan did not know he had been there at all.
“Oh, I don’t exactly want anything. I can clear out if you’d rather, Rutter.”
“All right. I’d rather.”
“Only I thought I’d tell you it’s call-over on the Upper in half-an-hour.”
“I’m not going to call-over.”
“What?”
“Damn call-over.”
Carpenter winced: he did not like swearing, and he did like Rutter well enough to wince when he swore. But the spirit of the oath promptly blotted the letter from his mind. Carpenter was a law-abiding boy who had been a few terms at a good preparatory school; he could scarcely believe his ears, much less a word of Rutter’s idle boast. Rutter certainly looked as though he meant it, with his closed lid of a mouth, and his sullen brooding eyes. But his mad intention was obviously not to be carried out.
“My dear man,” said Carpenter, “it’s one of the first rules of the school. Have you read them? You’d get into a frightful row!”
“The bigger the better.”
“You might even get bunked,” continued Chips, who was acquiring the school terminology as fast as he could, “for cutting call-over on purpose.”
“Let them bunk me! Do you think I care? I never wanted to come here. I’d as soon’ve gone to prison. It can’t be worse. At any rate they let you alone – they got to. But here … let them bunk me! It’s the very thing I want. I loathe this hole, and everything about it. I don’t care whether you say it’s one of the best schools going, or what you say!”
“I say it’s the best. I know I wouldn’t swop it for any other – or let a little bullying put me against it. And I have been bullied, if you want to know!”
“Perhaps you’re proud of that?”
“I hate it, Rutter! I hate lots of things more than you think. You’re in that little dormitory. You’re well off. But I didn’t come here expecting to find it all skittles. And I wouldn’t be anywhere else if it was twenty times worse than it is!”
Rutter looked at the ungainly boy with the round shoulders and the hanging head; for the moment he was improved out of knowledge, his flat chest swelling, his big head thrown back, a proud flush upon his face. There was a touch of consciousness in the pride, but it was none the less real for that, and Jan could only marvel at it. He could not understand this pride of school; but he could see it, and envy it in his heart, even while a fresh sneer formed upon his lips. He wished he was not such an opposite extreme to Carpenter: he could not know that the other’s attitude was possibly unique, that few at all events came to school with such ready-made enthusiasm for their school, if fewer still brought his own antagonism.
But, after all, Carpenter did not understand, and never would.
“You weren’t in the quad just now,” said Jan, grimly.
Chips looked the picture of guilt.
“I was. At the end. And I feel such a brute!”
“You? Why?” Jan was frowning at him. “You weren’t one of them?”
“Of course I wasn’t! But – I might have stood by you – and I didn’t do a thing!”
The wish to show some spirit in his turn, the envious admiration for a quality of which he daily felt the want, both part and parcel of one young nature, like the romantic outlook upon school life, were equally foreign and incomprehensible to the other. Jan could only see Carpenter floundering to the rescue, with his big head and his little wrists; and the vision made him laugh, though not unkindly.
“You would have been a fool,” he said.
“I wish I had been!”
“Then you must be as big a one as I was.”
“But you weren’t, Rutter! That’s just it. You don’t know!”
“I know I was fool enough to lose my wool, as they call it.”
“You mean man enough! I believe the chaps respect a chap who lets out without thinking twice about it,” said Carpenter, treading on a truth unawares. “I should always be frightened of being laughed at all the more,” he added, with one of his inward glances and the sigh it fetched. “But you’ve done better than you think. The fellows at the bottom of the house won’t hustle you. I heard Petrie telling them he’d never had his head smacked so hard in his life!”
Jan broke into smiles.
“I did catch him a warm 'un,” he said. “I wish you’d been there.”
“I only wish it had been one of the big brutes,” said Chips, conceiving a Goliath in his thirst for the ideal.
“I don’t,” said Jan. “He was trading on them being there, and by gum he was right! But they didn’t prevent me from catching him a warm 'un!”
And in his satisfaction the epithet almost rhymed with harm.
Nevertheless, Jan looked another and a brighter being as he stood up and asked Carpenter what his collar was like.
Carpenter had to tell him it was not fit to be seen.
Jan wondered where he could find the matron to give him a clean one.
“Her room’s at the top of the house near your dormitory. I daresay she’d be there.”
“I suppose I’d better go and see. Come on!”
“Shall we go down to the Upper together?” Chips asked as they reached the quad.
“I don’t mind.”
“Then I’ll wait, if you won’t be long.”
And the boy in the quad thought the other had quite forgotten his mad idea of cutting call-over – which was not far from the truth – and that he had not meant it for a moment – which was as far from the truth as it could be. But even Carpenter hardly realised that it was he who had put Rutter on better terms with himself, and in saner humour altogether, by the least conscious and least intentional of all his arguments.
Jan meanwhile was being informed upstairs that he was not supposed to go to his dormitory in daytime, but that since he was there he had better have a comfortable wash as well as a clean collar. So he came down looking perhaps smarter and better set-up than at any moment since his arrival. And at the foot of the stairs the hall door stood open, showing a boy or two within looking over the new illustrated papers; and one of the boys was young Petrie.
Jan stood a moment at the door. Either his imagination flattered him, or young Petrie’s right ear was still rather red. But he was a good type of small boy, clear-skinned, bright-eyed, well-groomed. And even as Jan watched him he cast down the Graphic, stretched himself, glanced at the clock, and smiled quite pleasantly as they stood face to face upon the threshold.
“I’m sorry,” said Jan, not as though he were unduly sorry, but yet without a moment’s thought.
“That’s all right, Tiger!” replied young Petrie, brightly. “But I wouldn’t lose my wool again, if I were you. It don’t pay, Tiger, you take my tip.”
CHAPTER VI
BOY TO BOY
The match on the Upper, although an impromptu fixture on the strength of an Indian summer’s day, was exciting no small interest in the school. It was between the champion house at cricket and the best side that could be got together from all the other houses; and the interesting point was the pronounced unpopularity of the champions (one of the hill houses), due to the insufferable complacency with which they were said to have received the last of many honours. The whole house was accused of having “an awful roll on,” and it was the fervent hope of the rest of the school that their delegates would do something to diminish this offensive characteristic. Boys were lying round the ground on rugs, and expressing their feelings after almost every ball, when Chips and Jan crept shyly upon the scene. But within five minutes a bell had tinkled on top of the pavilion; the game had been stopped because it was not a real match after all; and three or four hundred boys, most of them with rugs over their arms, huddled together in the vicinity of the heavy roller.
It so happened that Heriot was call-over master of the day. He stood against the roller in a weather-beaten straw hat, rapping out the names in his abrupt, unmistakable tones, with a lightning glance at almost every atom that said “Here, sir!” and detached itself from the mass. The mass was deflating rapidly, and Jan was moistening his lips before opening them for the first time in public, when a reddish head, whose shoulders were wedged not far in front of him, suddenly caught Jan’s eye.
“Shockley.”
“Here, sir.”
“Nunn minor.”
“Here, sir.”
“Carpenter.”
“Here, sir.”
“Rutter.”
No answer. Heriot looking up with pencil poised.
“Rutter?”
“Here, sir!”
And out slips Jan in dire confusion, to join Carpenter on the outskirts of the throng; to be cursed under Shockley’s breath; and just to miss the stare of the boy with reddish hair, who has turned a jovial face on hearing the name for the second time.
“I say, Carpenter!”
“Yes?”
“Did you see who that was in front of us?”
“You bet! And they said he wasn’t coming back till half-term! I’m going to wait for him.”
“Then don’t say anything about me – see? He never saw me, so don’t say anything about me.”
And off went Jan to watch the match, more excited than when he had lost self-control in the quad; the difference was that he did not lose it for a moment now. He heard the name of Devereux called over in its turn. He knew that Carpenter had joined Devereux a moment later. He wondered whether Devereux had seen him also – seen him from the first and pretended not to see him – or only this minute while talking to Chips? Was he questioning Chips, or telling him everything in a torrent?
Jan felt them looking at him, felt their glances like fire upon his neck and ears, as one told and the other listened. But he did not turn round. He swore in his heart that no power should induce him to turn round. And he kept his vow for minutes and minutes that seemed like hours and hours.
It was just as well, for he would have seen with his eyes exactly what he saw in his mind, and that was not all there was to see. There was something else that Jan must have seen – and might have seen through – had his will failed him during the two minutes after call-over. That was the celerity with which Heriot swooped down upon Devereux and Carpenter; laid his hand upon the shoulder of the boy who had won his last term’s prize; stood chatting energetically with the pair, chatting almost sharply, and then left them in his abrupt way with a nod and a smile.
But Jan stood square as a battalion under fire, watching a game in which he did not follow a single ball; and as he stood his mind changed, though not his will. He wanted to speak to Evan Devereux now. At least he wanted Evan to come and speak to him; in a few minutes, he was longing for that. But no Evan came. And when at length he did turn round, there was no Evan to come, and no Chips Carpenter either.
The game was in its last and most exciting stage when Jan took himself off the ground; feeling ran high upon the rugs, and expressed itself more shrilly and even oftener than before; and such a storm of cheering chanced to follow Jan into the narrow country street, that two boys quite a long way ahead looked back with one accord. They did not see Jan. They were on the sunny side; he was in the shade. But he found himself following Devereux and Carpenter perforce, because their way was his. He slackened his pace; they stopped at the market-place, and separated obviously against Carpenter’s will. Carpenter pursued his way to Heriot’s. Devereux turned to the left across the market-place, into the shadow of the old grey church with the dominant spire, with the blue-faced clock that struck in the night, and so to the school buildings and his own quad by the short cut from the hill. And Jan dogged him all the way, lagging behind when his unconscious leader stopped to greet a friend, or to look at a game of fives in the School House court, and in the end seeing Devereux safely into his study before he followed and gave a knock.
Evan had scarcely shut his door before it was open again, but in that moment he had cast his cap, and he stood bareheaded against the dark background of his tiny den, in a frame of cropped ivy. It was an effective change, and an effective setting, in his case. His hair was not red, but it was a pale auburn, and peculiarly fine in quality. In a flash Jan remembered it in long curls, and somebody saying, “What a pity he’s not a girl!” And with this striking hair there had always been the peculiarly delicate and transparent skin which is part of the type; there had nearly always been laughing eyes, and a merry mouth; and here they all were in his study doorway, with hardly any difference that Jan could see, though he had dreaded all the difference in the world. And yet, the smile was not quite the old smile, and a flush came first; and Evan looked past Jan into the quad, before inviting him in; and even then he did not shake hands, as he had often done on getting home for the holidays, when Jan’s hand was not fit to shake.
But he laughed quite merrily when the door was shut. And Jan, remembering that ready laugh of old, and how little had always served to ring a hearty peal, saw nothing forced or hurtful in it now, but joined in himself with a shamefaced chuckle.
“It is funny, isn’t it?” he mumbled. “Me being here!”
“I know!” said Evan, with laughing eyes fixed none the less curiously on Jan.
“When did you get back?” inquired Jan, speedily embarrassed by the comic side.
“Only just this afternoon. I went and had mumps at home.”
“That was a bad job,” said Jan, solemnly. “It must have spoilt your holidays.”
“It did, rather.”
“You wouldn’t expect to find me here, I suppose?”
“Never thought of it till I heard your name called over and saw it was you. I hear you’re in Bob’s house?”
“In Mr. Heriot’s,” affirmed Jan, respectfully.
“We don’t 'mister’ ’em behind their backs,” said Evan, in tears of laughter. “It’s awfully funny,” he explained, “but I’m awfully glad to see you.”
“Thanks,” said Jan. “But it’s not such fun for me, you know.”
“I should have thought you’d like it awfully,” remarked Evan, still looking the new Jan merrily up and down.
“After the stables, I suppose you mean?”
Evan was more than serious in a moment.
“I wasn’t thinking of them,” he declared, with an indignant flush.
“But I was!” cried Jan. “And I’d give something to be back in them, if you want to know!”
“You won’t feel like that long,” said Evan, reassuringly.
