find out; even had he found out, he would have done nothing. It was
more for his own private satisfaction than for the furtherance of
justice that he wished to track the offenders down. But he did not
look on the affair, as Jimmy Silver did, as rather sporting; he had
a tender feeling for the good name of the school, and he felt that
it was not likely to make Eckleton popular with the other schools
that went to camp if they got the reputation of practical jokers.
Practical jokers are seldom popular until they have been dead a
hundred years or so.
As for Walton and his colleagues, to complete the list of those who
were interested in this matter of the midnight raid, they lay
remarkably low after their successful foray. They imagined that
Kennedy was spying on their every movement. In which they were quite
wrong, for Kennedy was doing nothing of the kind. Camp does not allow
a great deal of leisure for the minding of other people's businesses.
But this reflection did not occur to Walton, and he regarded Kennedy,
whenever chance or his duties brought him into the neighbourhood of
that worthy's tent, with a suspicion which increased whenever the
latter looked at him.
On the night before camp broke up, a second incident of a sensational
kind occurred, which, but for the fact that they never heard of it,
would have given the schools a good deal to talk about. It happened
that Kennedy was on sentry-go that night. The manner of sentry-go is
thus. At seven in the evening the guard falls in, and patrols the
fringe of the camp in relays till seven in the morning. A guard
consists of a sergeant, a corporal, and ten men. They are on duty for
two hours at a time, with intervals of four hours between each spell,
in which intervals they sleep the sleep of tired men in the
guard-tent, unless, as happened on the occasion previously described,
some miscreant takes it upon himself to loose the ropes. The ground to
be patrolled by the sentries is divided into three parts, each of
which is entrusted to one man.
Kennedy was one of the ten privates, and his first spell of sentry-go
began at eleven o'clock.
On this night there was no moon. It was as black as pitch. It is
always unpleasant to be on sentry-go on such a night. The mind
wanders, in spite of all effort to check it, through a long series of
all the ghastly stories one has ever read. There is one in particular
of Conan Doyle's about a mummy that came to life and chased people on
lonely roads - but enough! However courageous one may be, it is
difficult not to speculate on the possible horrors which may spring
out on one from the darkness. That feeling that there is somebody - or
something - just behind one can only be experienced in all its force by
a sentry on an inky night at camp. And the thought that, of all the
hundreds there, he and two others are the only ones awake, puts a sort
of finishing touch to the unpleasantness of the situation.
Kennedy was not a particularly imaginative youth, but he looked
forward with no little eagerness to the time when he should be
relieved. It would be a relief in two senses of the word. His beat
included that side of the camp which faces the road to Aldershot.
Between camp and this road is a ditch and a wood. After he had been on
duty for an hour this wood began to suggest a variety of
possibilities, all grim. The ditch, too, was not without associations.
It was into this that Private Jones had been hurled on a certain
memorable occasion. Such a thing was not likely to happen again in the
same week, and, even if it did, Kennedy flattered himself that he
would have more to say in the matter than Private Jones had had; but
nevertheless he kept a careful eye in that direction whenever his beat
took him along the ditch.
It was about half-past twelve, and he had entered upon the last
section of his two hours, when Kennedy distinctly heard footsteps in
the wood. He had heard so many mysterious sounds since his patrol
began at eleven o'clock that at first he was inclined to attribute
this to imagination. But a crackle of dead branches and the sound of
soft breathing convinced him that this was the real thing for once,
and that, as a sentry of the Public Schools' Camp on duty, it behoved
him to challenge the unknown.
He stopped and waited, peering into the darkness in a futile endeavour
to catch a glimpse of his man. But the night was too black for the
keenest eye to penetrate it. A slight thud put him on the right track.
It showed him two things; first, that the unknown had dropped into the
ditch, and, secondly, that he was a camp man returning to his tent
after an illegal prowl about the town at lights-out. Nobody save one
belonging to the camp would have cause to cross the ditch.
Besides, the man walked warily, as one not ignorant of the danger of
sentries. The unknown had crawled out of the ditch now. As luck would
have it he had chosen a spot immediately opposite to where Kennedy
stood. Now that he was nearer Kennedy could see the vague outline of
him.
"Who goes there?" he said.
From an instinctive regard for the other's feelings he did not shout
the question in the regulation manner. He knew how he would feel
himself if he were out of camp at half-past twelve, and the voice of
the sentry were to rip suddenly through the silence _fortissimo_.
As it was, his question was quite loud enough to electrify the person
to whom it was addressed. The unknown started so violently that he
nearly leapt into the air. Kennedy was barely two yards from him when
he spoke.
The next moment this fact was brought home to him in a very practical
manner. The unknown, sighting the sentry, perhaps more clearly against
the dim whiteness of the tents than Kennedy could sight him against
the dark wood, dashed in with a rapidity which showed that he knew
something of the art of boxing. Kennedy dropped his rifle and flung up
his arm. He was altogether too late. A sudden blaze of light, and he
was on the ground, sick and dizzy, a feeling he had often experienced
before in a slighter degree, when sparring in the Eckleton gymnasium
with the boxing instructor.
The immediate effect of a flush hit in the regions about the jaw is to
make the victim lose for the moment all interest in life. Kennedy lay
where he had fallen for nearly half a minute before he fully realised
what it was that had happened to him. When he did realise the
situation, he leapt to his feet, feeling sick and shaky, and staggered
about in all directions in a manner which suggested that he fancied
his assailant would be waiting politely until he had recovered. As was
only natural, that wily person had vanished, and was by this time
doing a quick change into garments of the night. Kennedy had the
satisfaction of knowing - for what it was worth - that his adversary was
in one of those tents, but to place him with any greater accuracy was
impossible.
So he gave up the search, found his rifle, and resumed his patrol. And
at one o'clock his successor relieved him.
On the following day camp broke up.
* * * * *
Kennedy always enjoyed going home, but, as he travelled back to
Eckleton on the last day of these summer holidays, he could not help
feeling that there was a great deal to be said for term. He felt
particularly cheerful. He had the carriage to himself, and he had also
plenty to read and eat. The train was travelling at forty miles an
hour. And there were all the pleasures of a first night after the
holidays to look forward to, when you dashed from one friend's study
to another's, comparing notes, and explaining - five or six of you at a
time - what a good time you had had in the holidays. This was always a
pleasant ceremony at Blackburn's, where all the prefects were intimate
friends, and all good sorts, without that liberal admixture of weeds,
worms, and outsiders which marred the list of prefects in most of the
other houses. Such as Kay's! Kennedy could not restrain a momentary
gloating as he contrasted the state of affairs in Blackburn's with
what existed at Kay's. Then this feeling was merged in one of pity for
Fenn's hard case. How he must hate the beginning of term, thought
Kennedy.
All the well-known stations were flashing by now. In a few minutes he
would be at the junction, and in another half-hour back at
Blackburn's. He began to collect his baggage from the rack.
Nobody he knew was at the junction. This was the late train that he
had come down by. Most of the school had returned earlier in the
afternoon.
He reached Blackburn's at eight o'clock, and went up to his study to
unpack. This was always his first act on coming back to school. He
liked to start the term with all his books in their shelves, and all
his pictures and photographs in their proper places on the first day.
Some of the studies looked like lumber-rooms till near the end of the
first week.
He had filled the shelves, and was arranging the artistic decorations,
when Jimmy Silver came in. Kennedy had been surprised that he had not
met him downstairs, but the matron had answered his inquiry with the
statement that he was talking to Mr Blackburn in the other part of the
house.
"When did you arrive?" asked Silver, after the conclusion of the first
outbreak of holiday talk.
"I've only just come."
"Seen Blackburn yet?"
"No. I was thinking of going up after I had got this place done
properly."
Jimmy Silver ran his eye over the room.
"I haven't started mine yet," he said. "You're such an energetic man.
Now, are all those books in their proper places?"
"Yes," said Kennedy.
"Sure?"
"Yes."
"How about the pictures? Got them up?"
"All but this lot here. Shan't be a second. There you are. How's that
for effect?"
"Not bad. Got all your photographs in their places?"
"Yes."
"Then," said Jimmy Silver, calmly, "you'd better start now to pack
them all up again. And why, my son? Because you are no longer a
Blackburnite. That's what."
Kennedy stared.
"I've just had the whole yarn from Blackburn," continued Jimmy Silver.
"Our dear old pal, Mr Kay, wanting somebody in his house capable of
keeping order, by way of a change, has gone to the Old Man and
borrowed you. So _you're_ head of Kay's now. There's an honour
for you."
IX
THE SENSATIONS OF AN EXILE
"What" shouted Kennedy.
He sprang to his feet as if he had had an electric shock.
Jimmy Silver, having satisfied his passion for the dramatic by the
abruptness with which he had exploded his mine, now felt himself at
liberty to be sympathetic.
"It's quite true," he said. "And that's just how I felt when Blackburn
told me. Blackburn's as sick as anything. Naturally he doesn't see the
point of handing you over to Kay. But the Old Man insisted, so he
caved in. He wanted to see you as soon as you arrived. You'd better go
now. I'll finish your packing."
This was noble of Jimmy, for of all the duties of life he loathed
packing most.
"Thanks awfully," said Kennedy, "but don't you bother. I'll do it when
I get back. But what's it all about? What made Kay want a man? Why
won't Fenn do? And why me?"
"Well, it's easy to see why they chose you. They reflected that you'd
had the advantage of being in Blackburn's with me, and seeing how a
house really should be run. Kay wants a head for his house. Off he
goes to the Old Man. 'Look here,' he says, 'I want somebody shunted
into my happy home, or it'll bust up. And it's no good trying to put
me off with an inferior article, because I won't have it. It must be
somebody who's been trained from youth up by Silver.' 'Then,' says the
Old Man, reflectively, 'you can't do better than take Kennedy. I
happen to know that Silver has spent years in showing him the straight
and narrow path. You take Kennedy.' 'All right,' says Kay; 'I always
thought Kennedy a bit of an ass myself, but if he's studied under
Silver he ought to know how to manage a house. I'll take him. Advise
our Mr Blackburn to that effect, and ask him to deliver the goods at
his earliest convenience. Adoo, mess-mate, adoo!' And there you
are - that's how it was."
"But what's wrong with Fenn?"
"My dear chap! Remember last term. Didn't Fenn have a regular scrap
with Kay, and get shoved into extra for it? And didn't he wreck the
concert in the most sportsmanlike way with that encore of his? Think
the Old Man is going to take that grinning? Not much! Fenn made a
ripping fifty against Kent in the holidays - I saw him do it - but they
don't count that. It's a wonder they didn't ask him to leave. Of
course, I think it's jolly rough on Fenn, but I don't see that you can
blame them. Not the Old Man, at any rate. He couldn't do anything
else. It's all Kay's fault that all this has happened, of course. I'm
awfully sorry for you having to go into that beastly hole, but from
Kay's point of view it's a jolly sound move. You may reform the
place."
"I doubt it."
"So do I - very much. I didn't say you would - I said you might. I
wonder if Kay means to give you a free hand. It all depends on that."
"Yes. If he's going to interfere with me as he used to with Fenn,
he'll want to bring in another head to improve on me."
"Rather a good idea, that," said Jimmy Silver, laughing, as he always
did when any humorous possibilities suggested themselves to him. "If
he brings in somebody to improve on you, and then somebody else to
improve on him, and then another chap to improve on him, he ought to
have a decent house in half-a-dozen years or so."
"The worst of it is," said Kennedy, "that I've got to go to Kay's as a
sort of rival to Fenn. I shouldn't mind so much if it wasn't for that.
I wonder how he'll take it! Do you think he knows about it yet? He
didn't enjoy being head, but that's no reason why he shouldn't cut up
rough at being shoved back to second prefect. It's a beastly
situation."
"Beastly," agreed Jimmy Silver. "Look here," he added, after a pause,
"there's no reason, you know, why this should make any difference. To
us, I mean. What I mean to say is, I don't see why we shouldn't see
each other just as often, and so on, simply because you are in another
house, and all that sort of thing. You know what I mean."
He spoke shamefacedly, as was his habit whenever he was serious. He
liked Kennedy better than anyone he knew, and hated to show his
feelings. Anything remotely connected with sentiment made him
uncomfortable.
"Of course," said Kennedy, awkwardly.
"You'll want a refuge," said Silver, in his normal manner, "now that
you're going to see wild life in Kay's. Don't forget that I'm always
at home in my study in the afternoons - admission on presentation of a
visiting-card."
"All right," said Kennedy, "I'll remember. I suppose I'd better go and
see Blackburn now."
Mr Blackburn was in his study. He was obviously disgusted and
irritated by what had happened. Loyalty to the headmaster, and an
appreciation of his position as a member of the staff led him to try
and conceal his feelings as much as possible in his interview with
Kennedy, but the latter understood as plainly as if his house-master
had burst into a flow of abuse and complaint. There had always been an
excellent understanding - indeed, a friendship - between Kennedy and Mr
Blackburn, and the master was just as sorry to lose his second prefect
as the latter was to go.
"Well, Kennedy," he said, pleasantly. "I hope you had a good time in
the holidays. I suppose Silver has told you the melancholy news - that
you are to desert us this term? It is a great pity. We shall all be
very sorry to lose you. I don't look forward to seeing you bowl us all
out in the house-matches next summer," he added, with a smile, "though
we shall expect a few full-pitches to leg, for the sake of old times."
He meant well, but the picture he conjured up almost made Kennedy
break down. Nothing up to the present had made him realise the
completeness of his exile so keenly as this remark of Mr Blackburn's
about his bowling against the side for which he had taken so many
wickets in the past. It was a painful thought.
"I am afraid you won't have quite such a pleasant time in Mr Kay's as
you have had here," resumed the house-master. "Of course, I know that,
strictly speaking, I ought not to talk like this about another
master's house; but you can scarcely be unaware of the reasons that
have led to this change. You must know that you are being sent to pull
Mr Kay's house together. This is strictly between ourselves, of
course. I think you have a difficult task before you, but I don't
fancy that you will find it too much for you. And mind you come here
as often as you please. I am sure Silver and the others will be glad
to see you. Goodbye, Kennedy. I think you ought to be getting across
now to Mr Kay's. I told him that you would be there before half-past
nine. Good night."
"Good night, sir," said Kennedy.
He wandered out into the house dining-room. Somehow, though Kay's was
only next door, he could not get rid of the feeling that he was about
to start on a long journey, and would never see his old house again.
And in a sense this was so. He would probably visit Blackburn's
tomorrow afternoon, but it would not be the same. Jimmy Silver would
greet him like a brother, and he would brew in the same study in which
he had always brewed, and sit in the same chair; but it would not be
the same. He would be an outsider, a visitor, a stranger within the
gates, and - worst of all - a Kayite. Nothing could alter that.
The walk of the dining-room were covered with photographs of the house
cricket and football teams for the last fifteen years. Looking at
them, he felt more than ever how entirely his school life had been
bound up in his house. From his first day at Eckleton he had been
taught the simple creed of the Blackburnite, that Eckleton was the
finest school in the three kingdoms, and that Blackburn's was the
finest house in the finest school.
Under the gas-bracket by the door hung the first photograph in which
he appeared, the cricket team of four years ago. He had just got the
last place in front of Challis on the strength of a tremendous catch
for the house second in a scratch game two days before the
house-matches began. It had been a glaring fluke, but it had impressed
Denny, the head of the house, who happened to see it, and had won him
his place.
He walked round the room, looking at each photograph in turn. It
seemed incredible that he had no longer any right to an interest in
the success of Blackburn's. He could have endured leaving all this
when his time at school was up, for that would have been the natural
result of the passing of years. But to be transplanted abruptly and
with a wrench from his native soil was too much. He went upstairs to
pack, suffering from as severe an attack of the blues as any youth of
eighteen had experienced since blues were first invented.
Jimmy Silver hovered round, while he packed, with expressions of
sympathy and bitter remarks concerning Mr Kay and his wicked works,
and, when the operation was concluded, helped Kennedy carry his box
over to his new house with the air of one seeing a friend off to the
parts beyond the equator.
It was ten o'clock by the time the front door of Kay's closed upon its
new head. Kennedy went to the matron's sanctum to be instructed in the
geography of the house. The matron, a severe lady, whose faith in
human nature had been terribly shaken by five years of office in
Kay's, showed him his dormitory and study with a lack of geniality
which added a deeper tinge of azure to Kennedy's blues. "So you've
come to live here, have you?" her manner seemed to say; "well, I pity
you, that's all. A nice time _you're_ going to have."
Kennedy spent the half-hour before going to bed in unpacking his box
for the second time, and arranging his books and photographs in the
study which had been Wayburn's. He had nothing to find fault with in
the study. It was as large as the one he had owned at Blackburn's,
and, like it, looked out over the school grounds.
At half-past ten the gas gave a flicker and went out, turned off at
the main. Kennedy lit a candle and made his way to his dormitory.
There now faced him the more than unpleasant task of introducing
himself to its inmates. He knew from experience the disconcerting way
in which a dormitory greets an intruder. It was difficult to know how
to begin matters. It would take a long time, he thought, to explain
his presence to their satisfaction.
Fortunately, however, the dormitory was not unprepared. Things get
about very quickly in a house. The matron had told the housemaids; the
housemaids had handed it on to their ally, the boot boy; the boot boy
had told Wren, whom he happened to meet in the passage, and Wren had
told everybody else.
There was an uproar going on when Kennedy opened the door, but it died
away as he appeared, and the dormitory gazed at the newcomer in
absolute and embarrassing silence. Kennedy had not felt so conscious
of the public eye being upon him since he had gone out to bat against
the M.C.C., on his first appearance in the ranks of the Eckleton
eleven. He went to his bed and began to undress without a word,
feeling rather than seeing the eyes that were peering at him. When he
had completed the performance of disrobing, he blew out the candle and
got into bed. The silence was broken by numerous coughs, of that
short, suggestive type with which the public schoolboy loves to
embarrass his fellow man. From some unidentified corner of the room
came a subdued giggle. Then a whispered, "Shut _up_, you fool!"
To which a low voice replied, "All _right,_ I'm not doing
anything."
More coughs, and another outbreak of giggling from a fresh quarter.
"Good night," said Kennedy, to the room in general.
There was no reply. The giggler appeared to be rapidly approaching
hysterics.
"Shut up that row," said Kennedy.
The giggling ceased.
The atmosphere was charged with suspicion. Kennedy fell asleep fearing
that he was going to have trouble with his dormitory before many
nights had passed.
X
FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF AN EXILE
Breakfast on the following morning was a repetition of the dormitory
ordeal. Kennedy walked to his place on Mr Kay's right, feeling that
everyone was looking at him, as indeed they were. He understood for
the first time the meaning of the expression, "the cynosure of all
eyes". He was modest by nature, and felt his position a distinct
trial.
He did not quite know what to say or do with regard to his new
house-master at this their first meeting in the latter's territory.
"Come aboard, sir," occurred to him for a moment as a happy phrase,
but he discarded it. To make the situation more awkward, Mr Kay did
not observe him at first, being occupied in assailing a riotous fag at
the other end of the table, that youth having succeeded, by a
dexterous drive in the ribs, in making a friend of his spill half a
cup of coffee. Kennedy did not know whether to sit down without a word
or to remain standing until Mr Kay had time to attend to him. He would
have done better to have sat down; Mr Kay's greeting, when it came,
was not worth waiting for.
"Sit down, Kennedy," he said, irritably - rebuking people on an empty
stomach always ruffled him. "Sit down, sit down."
Kennedy sat down, and began to toy diffidently with a sausage,
remembering, as he did so, certain diatribes of Fenn's against the
food at Kay's. As he became more intimate with the sausage, he
admitted to himself that Fenn had had reason. Mr Kay meanwhile pounded
away in moody silence at a plate of kidneys and bacon. It was one of
the many grievances which gave the Kayite material for conversation
that Mr Kay had not the courage of his opinions in the matter of food.
He insisted that he fed his house luxuriously, but he refused to brave
the mysteries of its bill of fare himself.
Fenn had not come down when Kennedy went in to breakfast. He arrived
some ten minutes later, when Kennedy had vanquished the sausage, and
was keeping body and soul together with bread and marmalade.
"I cannot have this, Fenn," snapped Mr Kay; "you must come down in
time."
Fenn took the rebuke in silence, cast one glance at the sausage which
confronted him, and then pushed it away with such unhesitating
rapidity that Mr Kay glared at him as if about to take up the cudgels
for the rejected viand. Perhaps he remembered that it scarcely
befitted the dignity of a house-master to enter upon a wrangle with a
member of his house on the subject of the merits and demerits of
sausages, for he refrained, and Fenn was allowed to go on with his
meal in peace.
Kennedy's chief anxiety had been with regard to Fenn. True, the latter
could hardly blame him for being made head of Kay's, since he had not
been consulted in the matter, and, if he had been, would have refused
the post with horror; but nevertheless the situation might cause a
coolness between them. And if Fenn, the only person in the house with
whom he was at all intimate, refused to be on friendly terms, his stay
in Kay's would be rendered worse than even he had looked for.
Fenn had not spoken to him at breakfast, but then there was little
table talk at Kay's. Perhaps the quality of the food suggested such
gloomy reflections that nobody liked to put them into words.
After the meal Fenn ran upstairs to his study. Kennedy followed him,
and opened conversation in his direct way with the subject which he
had come to discuss.
"I say," he said, "I hope you aren't sick about this. You know I
didn't want to bag your place as head of the house."
"My dear chap," said Fenn, "don't apologise. You're welcome to it.
Being head of Kay's isn't such a soft job that one is keen on sticking
to it."
"All the same - " began Kennedy.
"I knew Kay would get at me somehow, of course. I've been wondering
how all the holidays. I didn't think of this. Still, I'm jolly glad
it's happened. I now retire into private life, and look on. I've taken
years off my life sweating to make this house decent, and now I'm
going to take a rest and watch you tearing your hair out over the job.
I'm awfully sorry for you. I wish they'd roped in some other victim."
"But you're still a house prefect, I suppose?"
"I believe so, Kay couldn't very well make me a fag again."
"Then you'll help manage things?"
Fenn laughed.
"Will I, by Jove! I'd like to see myself! I don't want to do the heavy
martyr business and that sort of thing, but I'm hanged if I'm going to
take any more trouble over the house. Haven't you any respect for Mr
Kay's feelings? He thinks I can't keep order. Surely you don't want me
to go and shatter his pet beliefs? Anyhow, I'm not going to do it. I'm
going to play 'villagers and retainers' to your 'hero'. If you do
anything wonderful with the house, I shall be standing by ready to
cheer. But you don't catch me shoving myself forward. 'Thank Heaven I
knows me place,' as the butler in the play says."
Kennedy kicked moodily at the leg of the chair which he was holding.
The feeling that his whole world had fallen about his ears was
increasing with every hour he spent in Kay's. Last term he and Fenn
had been as close friends as you could wish to see. If he had asked
Fenn to help him in a tight place then, he knew he could have relied
on him. Now his chief desire seemed to be to score off the human race
in general, his best friend included. It was a depressing beginning.
"Do you know what the sherry said to the man when he was just going to
drink it?" inquired Fenn. "It said, '_Nemo me impune lacessit_'.
That's how I feel. Kay went out of his way to give me a bad time when
I was doing my best to run his house properly, so I don't see that I'm
called upon to go out of my way to work for him."
"It's rather rough on me - " Kennedy began. Then a sudden indignation
rushed through him. Why should he grovel to Fenn? If Fenn chose to
stand out, let him. He was capable of running the house by himself.
"I don't care," he said, savagely. "If you can't see what a cad you're
making of yourself, I'm not going to try to show you. You can do what
you jolly well please. I'm not dependent on you. I'll make this a
decent house off my own bat without your help. If you like looking on,
you'd better look on. I'll give you something to look at soon."
He went out, leaving Fenn with mixed feelings. He would have liked to
have followed him, taken back what he had said, and formed an
offensive alliance against the black sheep of the house - and also,
which was just as important, against the slack sheep, who were good
for nothing, either at work or play. But his bitterness against the
house-master prevented him. He was not going to take his removal from
the leadership of Kay's as if nothing had happened.
Meanwhile, in the dayrooms and studies, the house had been holding
indignation meetings, and at each it had been unanimously resolved
that Kay's had been abominably treated, and that the deposition of
Fenn must not be tolerated. Unfortunately, a house cannot do very much
when it revolts. It can only show its displeasure in little things,
and by an increase of rowdiness. This was the line that Kay's took.
Fenn became a popular hero. Fags, until he kicked them for it, showed
a tendency to cheer him whenever they saw him. Nothing could paint Mr
Kay blacker in the eyes of his house, so that Kennedy came in for all
the odium. The same fags who had cheered Fenn hooted him on one
occasion as he passed the junior dayroom. Kennedy stopped short, went
in, and presented each inmate of the room with six cuts with a
swagger-stick. This summary and Captain Kettle-like move had its
effect. There was no more hooting. The fags bethought themselves of
other ways of showing their disapproval of their new head.
One genius suggested that they might kill two birds with one
stone - snub Kennedy and pay a stately compliment to Fenn by applying
to the latter for leave to go out of bounds instead of to the former.
As the giving of leave "down town" was the prerogative of the head of
the house, and of no other, there was a suggestiveness about this mode
of procedure which appealed to the junior dayroom.
But the star of the junior dayroom was not in the ascendant. Fenn
might have quarrelled with Kennedy, and be extremely indignant at his
removal from the headship of the house, but he was not the man to
forget to play the game. His policy of non-interference did not
include underhand attempts to sap Kennedy's authority. When Gorrick,
of the Lower Fourth, the first of the fags to put the ingenious scheme
into practice, came to him, still smarting from Kennedy's castigation,
Fenn promptly gave him six more cuts, worse than the first, and kicked
him out into the passage. Gorrick naturally did not want to spoil a
good thing by giving Fenn's game away, so he lay low and said nothing,
with the result that Wren and three others met with the same fate,
only more so, because Fenn's wrath increased with each visit.
Kennedy, of course, heard nothing of this, or he might perhaps have
thought better of Fenn. As for the junior dayroom, it was obliged to
work off its emotion by jeering Jimmy Silver from the safety of the
touchline when the head of Blackburn's was refereeing in a match
between the juniors of his house and those of Kay's. Blackburn's
happened to win by four goals and eight tries, a result which the
patriotic Kay fag attributed solely to favouritism on the part of the
referee.
"I like the kids in your house," said Jimmy to Kennedy, after the
match, when telling the latter of the incident; "there's no false idea
of politeness about them. If they don't like your decisions, they say
so in a shrill treble."
"Little beasts," said Kennedy. "I wish I knew who they were. It's
hopeless to try and spot them, of course."
XI
THE SENIOR DAYROOM OPENS FIRE
Curiously enough, it was shortly after this that the junior dayroom
ceased almost entirely to trouble the head of the house. Not that they
turned over new leaves, and modelled their conduct on that of the hero
of the Sunday-school story. They were still disorderly, but in a
lesser degree; and ragging became a matter of private enterprise among
the fags instead of being, as it had threatened to be, an organised
revolt against the new head. When a Kay's fag rioted now, he did so
with the air of one endeavouring to amuse himself, not as if he were
carrying on a holy war against the oppressor.
Kennedy's difficulties were considerably diminished by this change. A
head of a house expects the juniors of his house to rag. It is what
they are put into the world to do, and there is no difficulty in
keeping the thing within decent limits. A revolution is another case
altogether. Kennedy was grateful for the change, for it gave him more
time to keep an eye on the other members of the house, but he had no
idea what had brought it about. As a matter of fact, he had Billy
Silver to thank for it. The chief organiser of the movement against
Kennedy in the junior dayroom had been the red-haired Wren, who
preached war to his fellow fags, partly because he loved to create a
disturbance, and partly because Walton, who hated Kennedy, had told
him to. Between Wren and Billy Silver a feud had existed since their
first meeting. The unsatisfactory conclusion to their encounter in
camp had given another lease of life to the feud, and Billy had come
back to Kay's with the fixed intention of smiting his auburn-haired
foe hip and thigh at the earliest opportunity. Wren's attitude with
respect to Kennedy gave him a decent excuse. He had no particular
regard for Kennedy. The fact that he was a friend of his brother's was
no recommendation. There existed between the two Silvers that feeling
which generally exists between an elder and a much younger brother at
the same school. Each thought the other a bit of an idiot, and though
equal to tolerating him personally, was hanged if he was going to do
the same by his friends. In Billy's circle of acquaintances, Jimmy's
friends were looked upon with cold suspicion as officious meddlers who
would give them lines if they found them out of bounds. The
aristocrats with whom Jimmy foregathered barely recognised the
existence of Billy's companions. Kennedy's claim to Billy's good
offices rested on the fact that they both objected to Wren.
So that, when Wren lifted up his voice in the junior dayroom, and
exhorted the fags to go and make a row in the passage outside
Kennedy's study, and - from a safe distance, and having previously
ensured a means of rapid escape - to fling boots at his door, Billy
damped the popular enthusiasm which had been excited by the proposal
by kicking Wren with some violence, and begging him not to be an ass.
Whereupon they resumed their battle at the point at which it had been
interrupted at camp. And when, some five minutes later, Billy, from
his seat on his adversary's chest, offered to go through the same
performance with anybody else who wished, the junior dayroom came to
the conclusion that his feelings with regard to the new head of the
house, however foolish and unpatriotic, had better be respected. And
the revolution of the fags had fizzled out from that moment.
In the senior dayroom, however, the flag of battle was still unfurled.
It was so obvious that Kennedy had been put into the house as a
reformer, and the seniors of Kay's had such an objection to being
reformed, that trouble was only to be expected. It was the custom in
most houses for the head of the house, by right of that position, to
be also captain of football. The senior dayroom was aggrieved at
Kennedy's taking this post from Fenn. Fenn was in his second year in
the school fifteen, and he was the three-quarter who scored most
frequently for Eckleton, whereas Kennedy, though practically a
certainty for one of the six vacant places in the school scrum, was at
present entitled to wear only a second fifteen cap. The claims of Fenn
to be captain of Kay's football were strong, Kennedy had begged him to
continue in that position more than once. Fenn's persistent refusal
had helped to increase the coolness between them, and it had also made
things more difficult for Kennedy in the house.
It was on the Monday of the third week of term that Kennedy, at Jimmy
Silver's request, arranged a "friendly" between Kay's and Blackburn's.
There could be no doubt as to which was the better team (for
Blackburn's had been runners up for the Cup the season before), but
the better one's opponents the better the practice. Kennedy wrote out
the list and fixed it on the notice board. The match was to be played
on the following afternoon.
A football team must generally be made up of the biggest men at the
captain's disposal, so it happened that Walton, Perry, Callingham, and
the other leaders of dissension in Kay's all figured on the list. The
consequence was that the list came in for a good deal of comment in
the senior dayroom. There were games every Saturday and Wednesday, and
it annoyed Walton and friends that they should have to turn out on an
afternoon that was not a half holiday. It was trouble enough playing
football on the days when it was compulsory. As for patriotism, no
member of the house even pretended to care whether Kay's put a good
team into the field or not. The senior dayroom sat talking over the
matter till lights-out. When Kennedy came down next morning, he found
his list scribbled over with blue pencil, while across it in bold
letters ran the single word,
ROT.
He went to his study, wrote out a fresh copy, and pinned it up in
place of the old one. He had been early in coming down that morning,
and the majority of the Kayites had not seen the defaced notice. The
match was fixed for half-past four. At four a thin rain was falling.
The weather had been bad for some days, but on this particular
afternoon it readied the limit. In addition to being wet, it was also
cold, and Kennedy, as he walked over to the grounds, felt that he
would be glad when the game was over. He hoped that Blackburn's would
be punctual, and congratulated himself on his foresight in securing Mr
Blackburn as referee. Some of the staff, when they consented to hold
the whistle in a scratch game, invariably kept the teams waiting on
the field for half an hour before turning up. Mr Blackburn, an the
other hand, was always punctual. He came out of his house just as
Kennedy turned in at the school gates.
"Well, Kennedy," he said from the depths of his ulster, the collar of
which he had turned up over his ears with a prudence which Kennedy,
having come out with only a blazer on over his football clothes,
distinctly envied, "I hope your men are not going to be late. I don't
think I ever saw a worse day for football. How long were you thinking
of playing? Two twenty-fives would be enough for a day like this, I
think."
Kennedy consulted with Jimmy Silver, who came up at this moment, and
they agreed without argument that twenty-five minutes each way would
be the very thing.
"Where are your men?" asked Jimmy. "I've got all our chaps out here,
bar Challis, who'll be out in a few minutes. I left him almost
changed."
Challis appeared a little later, and joined the rest of Blackburn's
team, who were putting in the time and trying to keep warm by running
and passing and dropping desultory goals. But, with the exception of