THE COMPLETE DAVID BLAIZE TRILOGY (Illustrated Edition). Эдвард Бенсон

you’d better find out. I’ll ask you about it when we go up to dormitory.”

      “Right oh,” said Mullins, strong in the consciousness of numbers to back him; “but lots of chaps will tell you.”

      “Then I’ll ask them all,” said David. “Two at a time, if they funk.”

      His heart quaked, but the essence of courage is not that your heart should not quake, but that nobody else should know that it does.

      “Jesse had younger sons as well,” said somebody else, while Mullins was thinking about this. “There was one who was ruddy. I should think it was beastly to be ruddy.”

      “Oh, yes. He was an awful corker, and kept sheep. Don’t suppose he could keep wickets or anything like that. Probably he couldn’t hold the simplest catch, either. But I expect he could spoon them up himself, all right. Old Jesse would like that. He would probably say ‘Well played.’ ”

      “I say, what was the name of the kid?” asked a voice in tones of the intensest interest.

      David had been rummaging in his desk in a meaningless manner, not in order to find anything, but to have something to do to cover his self-consciousness. But when this direct question was asked his hand closed firmly on a tight, solid classical dictionary, and he waited for the answer.

      “I think he was called David,” said Mullins, who had plucked up again after David’s threat, which had silenced him for the time. “Yes, David, I think,” he repeated.

      “Oh, do you?” said David, and before Mullins had time to guard, the classical dictionary, discharged with low trajectory, hit him violently on the nose, which proceeded to bleed.

      “And if anybody else wants to talk about David, that’s what he’ll get. Chuck it up here, Bags.”

      Bags gave a shriek of exultation, as he returned the dictionary.

      “Jolly good shot,” he said. “Bang on the proboscis.”

      Though David had followed that excellent maxim of war, “If in an inferior position, attack,” he probably would have thought twice, had he not completely lost his temper before attacking, for almost everybody but Bags seemed to have coalesced against him, and he was taking on rather a large order. But the very suddenness and savageness of the attack certainly surprised the hosts of the enemy for a moment, and the gore-streaked Mullins retired to comfort his nose amid dead silence. But David’s cause was an unpopular one, and he knew it. The Eagles match was won, except for him, and no one was level-headed enough to reflect that it would have been much more decisively lost without him. Under the circumstances, though he had silenced Mullins altogether (for Mullins certainly would not want to be hurt again, and David in his present mood did not care two straws whether he himself was hurt or not), he knew that he must expect a disagreeable evening.

      David would have supplied that night an excellent concrete example to any philosopher who wished to study the unstable nature of popularity. During that exquisite hour when he was tying up and confusing the Eagles side with his “wily” bowling there was no bounds to his popularity, and in one moment, by the insufficient closing of his hand, he had forfeited it all. Bags alone was faithful, and though that shot with the classical dictionary had silenced one of his tormentors, it had been a great mistake. For any one who had lost the match so palpably as he had done must expect to have sarcastic remarks made, and if David had only taken them with the meekness that their justice demanded there would probably soon have been a truce to his punishment. But meekness, unfortunately, was one of those Christian qualities which he was totally devoid of, and, though his summary hard-cornered answer to Mullins had been successful enough, he found that, even if it had been possible to continue making violent assaults on everybody, he had not the heart to do so, so chilly and dispiriting was the general attitude towards him. Stone, for instance, though he had congratulated David on his bowling directly after the match, was swayed by popular feeling, and when, on going up to dormitory, David offered him one of his supper biscuits, which was highly sought after, Stone said “No thanks,” in a tone that would have chilled a salamander. No one definitely cut him, and there were no more direct allusions to the son of Jesse, for the portent of Mullins’s nose was a danger-signal which it would have been folly to disregard; but if he spoke, he was answered in polite monosyllables, and if he joined a chattering group, the chatter ceased until he went away again. No one but Bags came to sit on his bed, and though he made pretence of being particularly communicative and cheerful, he jested with a hollow heart.

      Next morning was Sunday, and, in lieu of early school, the boys were allowed to spend the hour before breakfast at the bathing-place. But when David asked Stone to come and bathe with him Stone replied that he was engaged to Mullins, and it was bitter to see Ferrers lend Mullins his towel (though after he had finished with it himself) and find that Mullins, fat, stupid Mullins, was regarded not only as an injured person, which anybody could see who looked at his face, but an unjustly injured person. And in the middle of David’s bathe, who should appear but the Archdeacon himself! It is true that he went to the far end of the bathing-place, which was known as the masters’ bathing-place, where the Head himself sometimes swam fiercely about; but the stout apparition of his father, clad in a striped jersey, cut off at the knees and shoulders, standing on the header-board was a distracting affair. Even the loyal Bags, who had followed David down to keep him company (for Bags was not allowed to bathe, having a weak heart), even Bags gazed in dismay at that squat, square form, and said “Lor’.” Simultaneously somebody behind David remarked:

      “Anyhow, he takes his gaiters off.”

      David felt too desolate to resent this; also he was watching his father, almost praying that he should take a neat header. But a loud, flat smack was heard as he fell into the water.

      And Ferrers said to Mullins:

      “I say, can your pater take belly-floppers?”

      Then Mullins (with a watchful eye on David) as he dried himself with Ferrers’s towel, began to whistle “Once in royal David’s city.” Other boys began to whistle it too. It was all deplorable.

      The day had begun badly and continued badly. David offered to share his hymn-book with the boy who sat next him in chapel, who appeared not to see what he did. He asked Stone to come for a walk with him after chapel, and again Stone was engaged to Mullins. But all the time Bags was waiting like a dog to divert and console his master if only his master would allow him, eagerly braving the unpleasantness of alliance with the unpopular side, and though, twenty-four hours ago, David would have scouted the idea of Bags consoling him, he turned to him eagerly now, and even allowed him to have the Monarch’s travelling-carriage in his pocket at dinner. And though all the slights and sneers which surrounded them were of the general nature of chaff, they were of the species of chaff which is meant to hurt. As Bags had once acutely remarked, you can hit a fellow over the head just to show you like him, but you can do the very same thing in an opposite spirit, and it was this spirit just now that animated these small boys. It was “a rag,” no doubt, but a rag with a sting in it, for David was paying the penalty of having been popular, as well as of having disappointed his admirers.

      But an eye, wholly unsuspected, was watching the situation. The Head was perfectly aware that David had lost the match against Eagles (though he had so nearly won it); he was aware also what manner of impression David’s father would make on his irreverent school, and when all day he saw David no longer the centre of groups that were making rather more noise than was necessary, but either alone, or with Bags, he took counsel with himself and stroked his grey beard for several minutes. Then he went across to the museum, where the first form were sitting under Mr. Dutton, about the time that the Catechism would be finished and the third missionary journey embarked on. There, having excused Mr. Dutton, he suddenly addressed David.

      “Blaize,” he said, “though it is Sunday, and we are in school, I must just congratulate you on your bowling performance yesterday. I have watched a good deal of cricket at Helmsworth for the last twenty years, and it was by far the finest piece of bowling I can remember. The school ought to be proud of you. Now, for our work. Antioch! Stone, where is Antioch?”

      There was no getting