Читать книгу The Captain of Queens - Herbert Hayens - Страница 3

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The Christmas vacation had ended, and Walter Ayling was packing his bag preparing for an early start in the morning. He was a sturdy, well-built youngster, with frank, open face, fresh colour, but no particular features to speak of, dark hair with a curl in it, merry, sunshiny eyes, thin lips, and a firm chin.

‘Just his brother over again,’ the captain had remarked when he first put in an appearance at Queen’s Norton; ‘poor kid. I pity him if he has to live up to Jack’s reputation.’

So far, young Ayling had not exactly set the Thames on fire. Although generally nearer the top of his form than the bottom, he had shown no particular brilliancy. He had his Fourth Form cricket and rugger caps, made a good show with the gloves, gained his swimming licence the first term, and always gave a good account of himself across country. He looked up from his packing, as the door opened and Jack entered the room.

‘Wish I were a few years younger and going back with you,’ exclaimed the elder brother, ‘we’d make the old Queens hum.’

‘I wish you were,’ Walter replied quickly; ‘we are likely to be in a hole this term. I don’t see why Doctor Bolton wanted to leave.’

Jack laughed. ‘Why, he has bagged the biggest plum in the school world. It’s an A1 honour to be Head of Manningham.’

‘I wouldn’t have swapped Queen’s Norton for fifty Manninghams,’ protested Walter sturdily.

The Queens generally were staunch, loyal sons of their school, but with young Ayling loyalty was a passion, amounting almost to a disease. There never had been, and never would be, a school equal to Queen’s Norton. Generation after generation of Aylings had sported the black and white colours which were to Walter what a flag is to its regiment. The names of his father and grandfather were inscribed on the roll of former captains; Jack had been a prefect, and captain of the first fifteen; numerous cousins had distinguished themselves inside the old buildings or on the playing-fields. It was perhaps excusable that Walter regarded the Headship of Manningham as a sorry substitute for that of Queen’s Norton.

Knowing his brother’s feelings, Jack exclaimed cheerfully, ‘Never mind, old boy, you’ll soon shake down comfortably under the new Head. The governors are sure to select a good man.’

‘It isn’t only the Doctor’s going, Jack. Most of the best fellows in the Sixth have finished, and Wilson, the new captain, is a regular mug. Good for anything in the way of scholarships and that sort of thing, but hopeless outside the classroom. He will let the school down for a dead certainty.’

‘Too much mince-meat and plum-pudding, Walter,’ laughed Jack, ‘you should ask the Mater for a blue pill. But seriously, you are probably making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Wilson may give you a surprise; I’ve known that happen before. It isn’t uncommon for a seeming King Log to prove a real King Stork. Anyhow, you keep up your end, and play the game. That’s the only motto, old son.’

Walter nodded, but did not speak. His belief in his brother had no limit, and Jack had ‘played the game’ all his life. His khaki uniform proclaimed that he was playing it now, like so many thousands of bright, eager, healthy youngsters from every part of the Empire. It was the memorable Christmas of 1914, a Christmas of desolation, with every promise of greater desolation to come, and Jack Ayling had obtained a few days’ precious leave, before being whisked across the Channel with his battalion.

Walter finished his packing hastily, and the brothers went downstairs. It was the last night they would spend together for a considerable time; perhaps it was the last night. The same thought occurred to both of them, but neither mentioned it—time to meet trouble when it came was the household motto.

Next morning Jack accompanied the younger boy to the station. ‘Good-bye, Walter,’ he exclaimed, as they grasped hands; ‘have a good time, don’t mope, live clean, and play the game. I hope you will make a decent show at the good old Queens.’

‘And I hope you will get through all right over there,’ replied Walter. ‘Wish I were a few years older, so that I could go with you.’

‘Gad, we’d make the Boches sit up, wouldn’t we?’ Jack exclaimed; but at heart he felt extremely glad that his brother was still only a ‘kid.’ ‘It would be rotten luck for the Mater to lose both of us,’ he reflected. ‘Rather lucky Walter isn’t in it.’

The village of Queen’s Norton was situated on a branch line, and at the junction Walter joined a crowd of his returning schoolfellows. Stoneham and Caldecott, both prefects, greeted him with a friendly ‘How do, Ayling,’ and Charlie Wrigley seized his arm.

‘Hallo, Walter, have a good time? I got in three days’ skating. Scrumptious! Here’s our apology for a train, with its wheezy old engine. The company ought to dig a big hole, and bury it decently. It’s a perfect scandal. In you go—quick.’

Walter jumped in; Wrigley following, shut the door, and, leaning out of the window, cried tauntingly to the struggling mob on the platform, ‘Compartment strictly reserved: directors of the line only.’ A wild yell and a quick rush greeted his announcement, and after a hot scrimmage half a score of excited youngsters forced a way in.

‘Children of the new age,’ sighed Wrigley; ‘greedy, grasping, selfish. Absolutely without consideration for the rights of others. And the vice is spreading; it has even affected the Babes. Look at Sproston and Dudley Minor, and I warrant they’ve only bought half-tickets. Defrauding the company, and interfering with the comfort of the travelling public who have paid up. The guard will chuck ’em out, that’s one comfort.’

‘Oh, rot, Wrigley, any one would fancy you were a royal prince.’

‘Ever hear of an unroyal one, my son?’

Sproston, ignoring the question, demanded indignantly where Wrigley thought he ought to travel.

‘In the luggage-van, my son,’ came the quick retort; ‘with a label attached, “To be delivered in good condition.” Shows deplorable lack of judgment on the part of your godfathers and godmothers to send you any other way.’

‘Don’t listen to his tosh,’ advised Dudley Minor; ‘he’s only in the Fourth; all those chaps think they own the earth.’

‘Have you heard the latest news?’ Wrigley asked gravely. ‘The new Head is making a sweeping change, and a very sensible one too, I call it. The Babes are to have a governess instead of a master this term. Nice, quiet old lady, who will tuck ’em in at night, and sing ’em a lullaby.’

‘I hope she’ll see that they wash their faces,’ said Norwood.

A howl of protest came from the three or four Babes—as the Lower Fourth were nicknamed—in the compartment, and Sproston asserted with considerable heat that he wasn’t going to be taught by a woman, and that he should ask his people to send him to Manningham.

Dudley Minor endeavoured to laugh it off as one of Wrigley’s yarns, but that young gentleman keeping a serious face, the poor Babes were impressed against their will, and five minutes after the train had stopped the story was being discussed with tremendous energy and excitement by the unhappy members of the Lower Fourth. It was a preposterous and unheard-of revolution.

‘We shall have to part our hair tidy,’ said Bradford, with intense gloom.

‘And keep our collars clean!’ ‘And rub our boots!’ ‘And hang our hats on the pegs!’ ‘We’ll be the laughing-stock of the school!’ The Babes were filled with the most dismal forebodings; all the brightness had departed from life; they viewed the world through sad-coloured glasses and declared unanimously that it was an exceedingly evil place.

‘The Babes will mob you to-morrow when they find how they have been hoaxed,’ Walter suggested.

Wrigley laughed joyously. ‘I’ll forgive them,’ he said. ‘By the way, have you heard anything about the new Head?’

‘No.’

‘Comes from Bellcourt. Hubert Trafford Tracey, M.A., D.Sc., D.Phil., and most of the other letters of the alphabet after his name. A regular high-flyer from what I can make out.’

‘Ever seen a cricket-bat or a football?’

‘That’s just where your sneer is thrown away, old son. Played for Oxford three years running, and rowed against Cambridge twice. Any more testimonials required?’

‘Good enough,’ laughed Ayling. ‘The first part rather frightened me, but if he’s a sportsman——’

‘Much shall be forgiven him,’ laughed his chum. ‘Sport is like charity, it covers a multitude of sins.’

‘Well, it makes things easier. ’Twould help Wilson, for instance, if he had ever knocked up a score or kicked a goal.’

Wrigley laughed merrily. ‘Good old Wilson! Can you fancy him in the scrum or hitting a six?’

‘He doesn’t even show up on the field,’ in an aggrieved tone. ‘I believe he thinks we are all musty, fusty Greeks.’

‘He’ll get the Barclay this year.’

‘Of course he’ll get the Barclay; get it with his eyes shut.’

‘And the Spencer.’

‘And any other old thing you like to mention. Swots all day and half the night, and reckons it’s fun. But how is that going to help the Queens? What we want is a strong man, who moves about and sees things.’

‘Stoneham or Caldecott, for example?’

‘Either of them would make a ripping captain.’

‘At footer or cricket, but I suppose lessons must have a look in somewhere. It’s a beastly nuisance, of course, but there you are, don’t you know? People outside make a regular fuss about it. I’ve come back with a swinging ultimatum in my pocket. If I don’t get my remove this year I’m to be withdrawn, so you’ll see me swotting harder than old Wilson. Vinegar pads will be my portion for the next twelve months. Don’t grin, I’m jammed tight with good resolutions,’ and they both laughed. The idea of the volatile Wrigley with a wet cloth round his forehead poring over Latin hexameters would have been a sight for the gods.

By this time the two chums, having reached the school, were speedily caught up in the whirl of bustle and excitement. A hundred or so boys were all chattering together, asking and answering questions; comparing notes on the holidays, describing the glories of skating or bemoaning the lack of it, breaking off in the middle of a sentence to welcome some new-comer, and conducting themselves generally after the manner of the average British schoolboy.

Sproston had started a keen discussion amongst his particular cronies by the suggestion that there would be no work the next day, and the Babes had seized upon the idea with avidity. Several of the governors, he explained, were coming to introduce the new Head, and it was ridiculous to suppose any one would want to start classes after such an exciting ceremony. According to the optimistic Sproston, the Chairman would finish his speech by saying, ‘And now, sir, I think you cannot begin your rule better than by giving the school a day’s holiday.’

‘And when he says that, you chaps,’ added Dudley Minor, ‘don’t forget to cheer.’

Unhappily for the Babes, Sproston proved a poor performer in the prophecy line. Up to a point everything proceeded favourably. The governors duly arrived, the school assembled in the great hall, and the Chairman introduced the new Head in a long speech, which perhaps a few of the Sixth, but no one else, understood. But he entirely forgot the part about the day’s holiday, and the Babes looked at each other in dismay, and at Sproston in rising wrath.

‘It’s all right,’ whispered the unabashed prophet; ‘he’ll do it presently when they pass a vote of thanks,’ and hope sprang up afresh.

But now the new Head was on his feet. He was a clean-shaven, young-looking man, tall and muscular, with a firm, resolute chin, and keen eyes that seemed to single out each particular boy in the room. He spoke in low, even tones, but every word sounded distinctly. It was a great honour and a great responsibility to succeed Dr Bolton, but with the aid of the masters and of the boys themselves he hoped to maintain the proud reputation of Queen’s Norton. He relied confidently upon every single boy to assist him. It wasn’t a florid speech, but it had the unusual merit of brevity, and the Lower Fourth applauded vigorously. Every moment now they were approaching nearer to the magical words.

They listened with visibly increasing impatience while Mr Temperley, the senior master, proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman, and then husbanded their breath for the tiger cheers. Alas for disappointed hopes! The Chairman remarked pleasantly that he was happy to have come amongst them, and that he should depart with every hope and confidence in the successful future of Queen’s Norton. That was all; not a single word concerning the holiday which Sproston had predicted. The tiger cheers failed to materialise; the Babes, under the watchful eyes of Mr Clark, marched off in gloomy silence to their classroom, breathing vows of vengeance against their discredited prophet.

‘As if it was my fault,’ he whispered to Dudley Minor; ‘why didn’t they have a proper chairman? No right to be there if he didn’t know what to say. I’ll punch your head, Wilkins, when we get out.’

Sproston was beginning to learn that it is dangerous to prophesy pleasant things unless one is sure they will come off. There was no doubt that the Lower Fourth regarded the inauguration of the new era as a distinct and glaring fraud.