The White Feather Part 22

Nor had the Boxing left the house in a better position. Linton fought pluckily in the Light-Weights, but went down before Stanning, after beating a representative of Templar's. Mill did not show up well in the Heavy-Weights, and was defeated in his first bout. Seymour's were reduced to telling themselves how different it all would have been if Drummond had been there.

Sheen watched the Light-Weight contests, and nearly danced with irritation. He felt that he could have eaten Stanning. The man was quick with his left, but he couldn't _box_. He hadn't a notion of side-stepping, and the upper-cut appeared to be entirely outside his range. He would like to see him tackle Francis.

Sheen thought bitterly of Drummond. Why on earth couldn't he have given him a chance. It was maddening.

The Fives carried on the story. Menzies was swamped by a Day's man. He might just as well have stayed away altogether. The star of Seymour's was very low on the horizon.

And then the house scored its one success. The headmaster announced it in the Hall after prayers in his dry, unemotional way.

"I have received the list of marks," he said, "from the examiners for the Gotford Scholars.h.i.+p." He paused. Sheen felt a sudden calm triumph flood over him. Somehow, intuitively, he knew that he had won. He waited without excitement for the next words.

"Out of a possible thousand marks, Sheen, who wins the scholars.h.i.+p, obtained seven hundred and one, Stanning six hundred and four, Wilson...."

Sheen walked out of the Hall in the unique position of a Gotford winner with only one friend to congratulate him. Jack Bruce was the one. The other six hundred and thirty-three members of the school made no demonstration.

There was a pleasant custom at Seymour's of applauding at tea any Seymourite who had won distinction, and so shed a reflected glory on the house. The head of the house would observe, "Well played, So-and-So!" and the rest of the house would express their emotion in the way that seemed best to them, to the subsequent exultation of the local crockery merchant, who had generally to supply at least a dozen fresh cups and plates to the house after one of these occasions. When it was for getting his first eleven or first fifteen cap that the lucky man was being cheered, the total of breakages sometimes ran into the twenties.

Rigby, good, easy man, was a little doubtful as to what course to pursue in the circ.u.mstances. Should he give the signal? After all, the fellow _had_ won the Gotford. It was a score for the house, and they wanted all the scores they could get in these lean years. Perhaps, then, he had better.

"Well played, Sheen," said he.

There was a dead silence. A giggle from the f.a.gs' table showed that the comedy of the situation was not lost on the young mind.

The head of the house looked troubled. This was awfully awkward.

"Well played, Sheen," he said again.

"Don't mention it, Rigby," said the winner of the Gotford politely, looking up from his plate.

XVIII

MR BEVAN MAKES A SUGGESTION

When one has been working hard with a single end in view, the arrival and departure of the supreme moment is apt to leave a feeling of emptiness, as if life had been drained of all its interest, and left nothing sufficiently exciting to make it worth doing. Horatius, as he followed his plough on a warm day over the corn land which his gratified country bestowed on him for his masterly handling of the traffic on the bridge, must sometimes have felt it was a little tame.

The feeling is far more acute when one has been unexpectedly baulked in one's desire for action. Sheen, for the first few days after he received Drummond's brief note, felt that it was useless for him to try to do anything. The Fates were against him. In stories, as Mr Anstey has pointed out, the hero is never long without his chance of retrieving his reputation. A mad bull comes into the school grounds, and he alone (the hero, not the bull) is calm. Or there is a fire, and whose is that pale and gesticulating form at the upper window? The bully's, of course. And who is that climbing nimbly up the Virginia creeper? Why, the hero. Who else? Three hearty cheers for the plucky hero.

But in real life opportunities of distinguis.h.i.+ng oneself are less frequent.

Sheen continued his visits to the "Blue Boar", but more because he shrank from telling Joe Bevan that all his trouble had been for nothing, than because he had any definite object in view. It was bitter to listen to the eulogies of the pugilist, when all the while he knew that, as far as any immediate results were concerned, it did not really matter whether he boxed well or feebly. Some day, perhaps, as Mr Bevan was fond of pointing out when he approached the subject of disadvantages of boxing, he might meet a hooligan when he was crossing a field with his sister; but he found that but small consolation. He was in the position of one who wants a small sum of ready money, and is told that, in a few years, he may come into a fortune. By the time he got a chance of proving himself a man with his hands, he would be an Old Wrykinian. He was leaving at the end of the summer term.

Jack Bruce was sympathetic, and talked more freely than was his wont.

"I can't understand it," he said. "Drummond always seemed a good sort.

I should have thought he would have sent you in for the house like a shot. Are you sure you put it plainly in your letter? What did you say?"

Sheen repeated the main points of his letter.

"Did you tell him who had been teaching you?"

"No. I just said I'd been boxing lately."

"Pity," said Jack Bruce. "If you'd mentioned that it was Joe who'd been training you, he would probably have been much more for it. You see, he couldn't know whether you were any good or not from your letter. But if you'd told him that Joe Bevan and Hunt both thought you good, he'd have seen there was something in it."

"It never occurred to me. Like a fool, I was counting on the thing so much that it didn't strike me there would be any real difficulty in getting him to see my point. Especially when he got mumps and couldn't go in himself. Well, it can't be helped now."

And the conversation turned to the prospects of Jack Bruce's father in the forthcoming election, the polling for which had just begun.

"I'm busy now," said Bruce. "I'm not sure that I shall be able to do much sparring with you for a bit."

"My dear chap, don't let me--"

"Oh, it's all right, really. Taking you to the 'Blue Boar' doesn't land me out of my way at all. Most of the work lies round in this direction.

I call at cottages, and lug oldest inhabitants to the poll. It's rare sport."

"Does your pater know?"

"Oh, yes. He rots me about it like anything, but, all the same, I believe he's really rather bucked because I've roped in quite a dozen voters who wouldn't have stirred a yard if I hadn't turned up. That's where we're scoring. Pedder hasn't got a car yet, and these old rotters round here aren't going to move out of their chairs to go for a ride in an ordinary cart. But they chuck away their crutches and hop into a motor like one o'clock."

"It must be rather a rag," said Sheen.

The car drew up at the door of the "Blue Boar". Sheen got out and ran upstairs to the gymnasium. Joe Bevan was sparring a round with Francis.

He watched them while he changed, but without the enthusiasm of which he had been conscious on previous occasions. The solid cleverness of Joe Bevan, and the quickness and cunning of the bantam-weight, were as much in evidence as before, but somehow the glamour and romance which had surrounded them were gone. He no longer watched eagerly to pick up the slightest hint from these experts. He felt no more interest than he would have felt in watching a game of lawn tennis. He _had_ been keen. Since his disappointment with regard to the House Boxing he had become indifferent.

Joe Bevan noticed this before he had been boxing with him a minute.

"Hullo, sir," he said, "what's this? Tired today? Not feeling well? You aren't boxing like yourself, not at all you aren't. There's no weight behind 'em. You're tapping. What's the matter with your feet, too? You aren't getting about as quickly as I should like to see. What have you been doing to yourself?"

"Nothing that I know of," said Sheen. "I'm sorry I'm so rotten. Let's have another try."

The second try proved as unsatisfactory as the first. He was listless, and his leads and counters lacked conviction.

Joe Bevan, who identified himself with his pupils with that thoroughness which is the hall-mark of the first-cla.s.s boxing instructor, looked so pained at his sudden loss of form, that Sheen could not resist the temptation to confide in him. After all, he must tell him some time.

"The fact is," he said, as they sat on the balcony overlooking the river, waiting for Jack Bruce to return with his car, "I've had a bit of a sickener."

"I thought you'd got sick of it," said Mr Bevan. "Well, have a bit of a rest."

"I don't mean that I'm tired of boxing," Sheen hastened to explain.

"After all the trouble you've taken with me, it would be a bit thick if I chucked it just as I was beginning to get on. It isn't that. But you know how keen I was on boxing for the house?"

Joe Bevan nodded.

"Did you get beat?"