Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate Part 15

"Every village team has its funny man," he said, "and we are jolly lucky to get him in last." I am sure Bagshaw was what is called a good sportsman, but he was too kind to be a good captain. I thought Sam Jenks was a harmless idiot when he came in with only one pad, and that on the wrong leg, but by the time he had fooled us out of eight or nine runs I was simply sick to death of him. Lambert stated in a loud voice that it was not cricket, and Collier, who was most completely disorganized both in body and temper, retorted that if it had been cricket Lambert would not have been playing; while Sam, who in some ways was not such an a.s.s as he tried to make out, played the next ball slowly to Lambert at short leg, and ran down the pitch exhorting him to throw it at Collier's head as soon as he got hold of it. Possibly this advice, combined with a natural inability to stoop quickly, made Lambert even slower than usual in picking up the ball, but when he did pick it up he threw it violently at the wicket to which Sam was running. There was some doubt whether he threw at Sam or at the wickets, but he missed whatever he intended to hit and the ball went yards away into the long gra.s.s, where it remained until four runs had been made and Burtington had won the match.

Immediately afterwards Sam fell over his wickets in trying to make a stylish stroke with one leg poised in the air, and an excursion of Burtingtonians, headed by Mr. Plumb, sallied forth and carried him shoulder-high to the tent, where he was given much refreshment.

One or two men on our side tried to persuade Bagshaw that there was plenty of time left to make as many runs as we wanted and to get the Burtington men out again, but when Mr. Plumb was told what we were talking about he came out of the tent and joined us. He was inclined to be elated, and seizing Bagshaw by the arm said he should like to have a word with him. They walked away from the rest of us, and, as a friend of Mr. Plumb's, I went with them.

"Cricket is cricket, that's what I say, sir," Mr. Plumb began, and Bagshaw, whose manners were perfectly splendid, a.s.sented without a smile.

"But in this yer little village there are what the parson calls local considerations, which I as captain of this team have got to consider."

Bagshaw inquired quite patiently what these considerations were.

"Well, it's like this, I keep The Reindeer, and the parson he's a teetotaller, not one of those stumping men who think because they drink nothing n.o.body else ought to, but what I should call broad-minded for a man who drinks nothing but water. Now what the parson says to me is this: 'You give these young gentlemen luncheon for which they pays half-a-crown ahead, and it's worth it, and my missis drives up in the pony-cart at five and gives everybody tea.' It's like a bargain, you understand."

Bagshaw understood most thoroughly and tried to stop the flow of Mr.

Plumb's conversation, but that excellent captain talked on for another five minutes, until two of our men who knew Bagshaw better than I did, took upon themselves to walk to the wickets. Then Mr. Plumb began to collect his men, which seemed to be a difficult matter, and it was half-past four before we began again. At five o'clock tea was ready and the game was interrupted for so long that we gave up all thoughts of winning it, but I heard afterwards from the parson himself that as a general rule only the batting side had tea and the other XI. had to take their chance of getting some. I believe we should have won that match if Mr. Plumb had captained our side, but the Busters were generally beaten, which possibly accounted for the fact that most of the villages round Oxford said they were a splendid eleven. No team which contained Lambert could help being splendid, but as regards cricket we were the most futile side it is possible to imagine, and Bagshaw, who was a really good sort, was also exactly the right man to captain it.

In our second innings Lambert made nine runs, which was not a great score for a man who said he had been asked to play for his county, but was unfortunately enough to make him very pleased with himself, and when he got into that state of mind he was a dangerous man, for he always wanted to do something which was better left undone. On this occasion he persuaded Jack Ward that a little dinner at The Reindeer would be the most sporting way of finis.h.i.+ng the evening, and I have never seen any one support a suggestion more heartily than Mr. Plumb did this one of Lambert's. He had a couple of beautiful ducklings waiting to be cooked, some lamb which would be wasted upon any one but real gentlemen, and some port which would make our hair curl. Collier listened to this and thought it too good to miss, so he backed up Lambert, and Ward, who did not seem enthusiastic over the hair-curling port, said he would stay if I would. There were good reasons why I should not stay and I mentioned them one by one, but although in the lump they ought to have been enough to stop me, when mentioned singly they did not seem to be very important. Ward, however, saw that I did not want to stay, and he was on the point of chucking up the whole thing when Dennison said to Mr. Plumb, "You see, some of us are frightened to death of the dons; it is a fairly rotten state to be in, because we daren't call our lives our own."

That remark was directed at me, and if I had been sensible I should have taken no notice of it, but unluckily I am one of those wretched people who hate to hear that I am frightened of anybody or anything, and for Dennison to tell Mr. Plumb such silly nonsense made me furious.

Of course I said that I would stay, and I saw Dennison wink at Lambert; the brute was for ever scoring off me, he had a most unrighteous way of getting what he wanted.

For some reason or other Bagshaw was always very decent to me, and when he heard that Ward, Dennison, Collier, Lambert and I were going to finish the evening at The Reindeer he asked me to come home in the brake, but that gibe of Dennison's was heavy upon me and I had determined to stick to my promise and do whatever came my way. I did not expect that the evening was going to be anything but a rowdy one, for when Lambert did undertake a thing he went at it most zealously.

First of all he got Ward to wire and ask Bunny Langham to drive over about ten o'clock and fetch us all back, and then he asked four or five of the most comical people in the Burtington team to come to The Reindeer after dinner and help at a smoking concert. All of the Burtington team came and a number of their friends, in fact I should think that nearly all the labourers in the village were entertained by us during the evening. Mr. Plumb began by being very pleased, and the evening ended in what local newspapers call "harmony," which is the most polite way of saying that any one sang who liked and that the discord was something terrible. I sang a solo, the first and last time I have ever done such a thing, but I was rapturously applauded by an audience who were more kind and thirsty than critical. My song was "Tom Bowling," at least Ward said it was more like "Tom Bowling" than anything else.

At half-past ten Bunny Langham had not come, and by some means or other it was necessary that we should reach Oxford before twelve o'clock.

Dennison suggested that we should have a "go-as-you-please" contest back to St. Cuthbert's, but Collier was not disposed to enter for a race in which he was bound to be last, and told us that if we were fools enough to go seven miles in an hour and a half, he would trouble us to rout up some don when we got back to college and say that he had been taken seriously unwell in Burlington, but hoped to be better in the morning. A man, who called himself a veterinary surgeon, but was described by Mr. Plumb as a cow-doctor, said he would give Collier a certificate of ill-health; I do not remember from what disease he was supposed to be suffering. The idea, however, of rus.h.i.+ng seven miles as hard as we could was crushed by Lambert, who was in a kind of "coach and four" mood and very abusive. He secured Mr. Plumb and having pushed him into a corner stated that he required a pair of horses and a wagonette, but Mr. Plumb was not in a condition to be addressed in terms of authority. His sense of importance had been increasing as the evening went on, and from being a most innocently amusing man he had become an obstinate and bibulous publican. He would have nothing to say to Lambert and declared that getting to Oxford was our business and that we ought to have thought about it before. The best thing to do with such a man was to leave him to the remorse of the following morning, but Lambert had an insane desire to talk and, I must admit, a forcible way of talking. There seemed to be a reasonable chance of a row, for Mr. Plumb wasn't without supporters who were as tired of us as we were of them, but Jack Ward managed to get hold of the cow-doctor and persuaded him to find some vehicle to help us on our way. As soon as Mr. Plumb heard of this he declared that the cow-doctor was taking the bread out of his mouth, but Ward told him if that was the case he ought to have another drink, and after having it he became comatose and un.o.bstructive.

Finally we started from The Reindeer at eleven o'clock in a light farm-cart, Ward and Dennison sitting on the seat with the driver, while Collier, Lambert and I sat on the floor of the conveyance. Lambert, when not singing Baccha.n.a.lian songs, complained of the indignity and discomfort of this performance, but I, having taken the precaution of propping myself against Collier, who was accustomed to being used as a cus.h.i.+on and very kind about it, was more sleepy than uncomfortable.

Besides, men who begin to think of being dignified towards midnight are a nuisance, so I told Lambert he was a speechless idiot, which statement I found to be positively untrue.

We had reached the outskirts of Oxford, and even Lambert had pa.s.sed from the state of song and abuse to that of sleep, when the cart was drawn up with such a jerk that my head collided with Collier's, and I heard Ward say--

"Why, Bunny, what the blazes are you doing here at this time of night?"

and Bunny answered with no unnecessary length, "Walking."

"But why?" Ward said.

"Exercise. Any room for another pig in the bottom of that cart?"

"Jump up, quick," Ward answered, "it is a quarter to twelve, and jolly lucky there is a moon or I should have missed you."

Bunny said that he was not going to hurry for any one, and wasted two or three valuable minutes before we got him safely into the cart. He was in an exceedingly bad temper, and it was only by dint of innumerable questions that we found that he had actually started to drive to Burtington and that something disastrous had happened on the journey. The exact nature of that disaster none of us ever discovered, but what Bunny wished us to believe was that he went to sleep and was driven into by a furniture van, and since he had been kind enough to start to Burtington we should have been a complete set of bounders if we had not suppressed Dennison when he said that no one was likely to believe such a tale as that. Anybody with a grain of decency could see that Bunny had been having a very bad time, and though we all thanked him tremendously when we got out at St. Cuthbert's, and told the driver to take him on to Christchurch as fast as he could, he just sat in the bottom of the cart and said nothing.

"I am afraid Bunny's ill," Ward said to me as soon as we got into college, and we blamed ourselves for not seeing him to "The House,"

though had we done so we could not have got back to St. Cuthbert's until a quarter-past twelve.

On the following morning Ward went round to see Bunny and found him drinking beer with his breakfast, which was a thing he never dared to do unless he felt aggressively well. Ward lunched with me and said that Bunny was all right except that his feelings were in a state of disorder.

"There is only one thing he is conceited about and that is his driving," Ward explained, "and last night he was driving a cob which a baby in arms could steer. Well, Bunny got upset, and is so ashamed of himself that he is angry with everybody else. He will be all right by dinner-time if he is left alone."

CHAPTER XII

THE USE AND ABUSE OF AN ESSAY

The day following the Burtington match was a very peaceful one, but the evening brought with it a disturbance which was altogether unexpected.

I was engaged at nine o'clock to read an essay to Mr. Edwardes, and I had been so energetic that I had written it two days before, which made me feel virtuous. The subject of the essay was "Impressions of Roman Society as gathered from Cicero's Letters," and I had taken more than ordinary trouble over it, for it was the sort of question which I could not answer without definite knowledge.

I went to Murray's rooms after dinner, and I remember telling him that I believed I had written something which would persuade my tutor that I had at least made an attempt to satisfy him. And Murray, who was always trying to keep me out of rows and giving me help when I was in them, read a little of it, and said that it was ever so much longer than the one he had written. As length meant work, I was very satisfied with this remark of his, and I went off to Mr. Edwardes with a feeling that he might be mildly pleased.

He greeted me coldly and sat down by the side of the table, with his back almost turned to me; we did not even exchange our opinions about the weather, and he was evidently as anxious for me to begin as I was to finish. My opening sentence was stamped by my own style. If I say that no one else would have written it, I only wish to record that no one else would have thought it worth while; I will not quote it, because when I tried to read this essay a year after I had written it, I was struck by the fact that it was altogether too florid for every-day use. Mr. Edwardes objected strongly to phrases which seemed to me beautifully rounded, and I gave them up slowly as one of my most cherished possessions. I could not share his feelings about them at that time, whatever I may think of them now, and they formed a part of a scheme to make my essays less dull, and what I was fain to think even a little amusing. But apart from my opening sentence I had in this essay deprived myself of the pleasure of ornate phrasing and been as solid as possible. I had, however, taken great pains over my first words. I wished them to convey to Mr. Edwardes that I could still annoy him if I liked, and afterwards I intended to show him that though this power remained to me I was too kind to use it. These were not perhaps the reasons why I was compelled to write essays, and I doubt whether he would ever have discovered my scheme even if I had read him what I had written. And I never did read it, for after I had finished the first sentence and deprived it of much of its effect by getting the stops mixed up, which made me want to read it over again, he turned round in his chair so quickly that he b.u.mped his arm against the table, and if he had not been a don I should have asked him if he had hurt himself. But as my efforts to please dons by inquiring after their health had not been successful, I went on reading until Mr. Edwardes stood up, and feeling then that something had gone hopelessly wrong, I stopped to look at him.

I could see that he was exceedingly angry, but why in the world he had become so suddenly afflicted I had not an idea.

"I do not require to hear any more of that. You may go," he said, and he actually pointed to the door. "But--" I began----

"You may go," he repeated, and since he looked as if he would continue pointing towards the door until I obeyed him, I collected the pages on which I had spent so much labour and walked slowly out of the room. I was too surprised to say anything more, and I did not even feel like banging the door. The only thought which occurred to me was that there must have been something very improper in that cherished sentence, but if my tutor imagined that I took any pleasure in indecencies, or would write them consciously, I felt that he was a very silly man. I stopped on the stairs and began reading my essay again; there was simply nothing in the beginning of it which could offend the most inquisitive and conscientious Mrs. Grundy. It might have bored any one, but the person who could have blushed at it had not yet been born.

I was most completely puzzled, and when I went back to my rooms and laid my rejected essay upon the table, I felt as if the only literature I wished to see again was the Commination Service. It had often been my fate to displease masters and dons, but it was a new experience for me to be turned out of a room without knowing in the least why I was expected to go. I came to the unsatisfying conclusion that Edwardes had gone mad, and I determined to see Murray so that I might tell him what had happened; but before I had finished writing a note which had to be written, both Murray and Foster came into my rooms.

"Foster has got something to tell you," Murray said.

"Not half as much as I have got to tell you," I answered.

"I will bet you a s.h.i.+lling you think it more important, and you can decide yourself," Murray replied.

I crammed my note into an envelope and looked at Fred, who was gazing, rather stupidly I thought, at a photo of Nina which she had sent me a few days before.

"How many did you make against Surrey this afternoon?" I asked him.

Murray began to laugh, which suggested to me that I was asking an awkward question. "Was it another blob?" I inquired.

"I made a hundred and two," Foster said, and looked quickly at me and then again at that wretched photo. I expect he was very anxious not to seem too pleased with himself, but there was no reason why I should not be as pleased as I liked, and for a minute I forgot all about Mr.

Edwardes. I told Fred that he was simply a certainty for his blue, and Murray again seemed to be amused.

"I have got it," Fred said quietly, and he stepped away from me, fearing that my delight might be painful to him.

There is an extraordinarily small choice of things to do when you are very delighted; just talking seemed to be hopelessly futile, and even shouting was not satisfactory. But I had to do something, so I opened a bottle of port, which I knew both Fred and Murray disliked, and made them drink some of it. After Murray had tasted his and congratulated Fred again, he put his gla.s.s down by the large bowl which I had bought on my first expedition to the shops of Oxford, and presently fears of dyspepsia gripped him so furiously that he emptied the wine into the bowl, when he thought I was not looking. It was '63 port given me by my father, and if he had seen Murray getting rid of it in this way I am sure that there would have been trouble; but I, not being oppressed by a knowledge of vintages, just filled Murray's gla.s.s up again and kept an eye on him to see what he would do with it. I might, however, have spared myself the trouble, for he had no intention of pretending to drink two gla.s.ses, though he told me afterwards that some curious impulse had compelled him to get rid of one, and he had decided that it would be safer in the bowl than elsewhere. In fact, he wished me to believe that he had done this as a compliment to Foster, but I could not follow his line of reasoning.

I sat and talked for a long time about the rottenness of the Cambridge bowling--which, by the way, I had never seen--and the runs Fred was sure to make in the 'Varsity match, until he tried very hard to stop me saying anything more about cricket, and Murray set me going on another subject when he remarked that it had not taken me long to read my essay.

"Edwardes has gone completely cracked," I stated. Fred had often heard me express a similar opinion about masters at Cliborough, and was not inclined to think seriously of Edwardes' condition, but Murray had curiosity enough to ask me what had happened. "You saw the beginning of my essay," I said to him, "and there was nothing in it which could offend a baby in arms, was there?"

Murray said that as far as he knew I had been most modest, and he added, quite unnecessarily, that the only criticism he had to make upon it was that I had been asked to give Cicero's impression of Roman society, and had preferred my own. I was not going to set myself up against Cicero even to please Murray, so I took no notice of his remark, and went on with my grievance very slowly, for a grievance does not get proper treatment if you spring it upon people; they just say "What a confounded swindle," and go on talking about their own affairs.

I had been badly treated, and I intended to make the most of it, so I did not mind being a bore if I could extract a little surprise and sympathy from Fred and Murray.