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

David was packed off early to bed that night in order that his brain might be in its most efficient mood for his examination next day, in a whirl of happy excitement. Never in all his day-dreams had he conceived that Adams’s could be like this. It was not like a school, it was like some new and entrancing kind of home, with the jolliest man he had ever seen as a master and father, and for family these friendly boys, and the black-haired girl, Adams’s daughter, whom everybody called by her Christian name. And yet the glamour of public school lay over it, and among this happy family there moved, like ordinary mortals, the great ones of the earth, Maddox and Cruikshank, and Westcott, captain of the school fifteen, behaving like everybody else and seemingly unconscious of their divinity. And these heroes had been seen with his mortal eyes, and he had been taken by Hughes into Maddox’s study after tea, where he had been permitted to help in washing up his tea-things. That to him was the Vatican, a room some twelve feet by ten in material dimensions, but a shrine, a centre. There were books everywhere—not school-books merely, but novels, books of poetry, books in French which Maddox read for his own amusement. Cricket-bats and a press of rackets were piled in the corner, and such space on the walls as was not filled with books was a mosaic of school photographs. And, perhaps most astounding of all, though Maddox had his school cricket colours, his racket and five colours, there was no trace of those glories anywhere; instead, on a nail behind the door, was hung a straw hat with just the house-colours on it, which David himself would be allowed to wear next September. Somehow that was tremendously grand: it was like a king who had the right to cover himself with stars and garters, preferring to go out to dinner in ordinary evening dress. . . .

      David’s bedroom was in the private part of the house, but next door was one of the boys’ dormitories. Merry, muffled noises leaked through the walls, and from the open window of the dormitory there came into his room whistlings and cheerful riot, and from time to time the clump of boots kicked off on to the floor. By degrees these sounds grew quiet, but he still lay in wide-eyed contemplation and expectancy. The most trifling preoccupation was always sufficient to make him forget to say his prayers, and to-night he had got into bed without their ever occurring to him. But, as he lay awake, among the million surmises that came to him about life in this enchanted place, he wondered whether fellows in the house said their prayers, since chapel apparently was a thing to be proud of, and on the moment he tumbled out of bed and knelt down. But only one petition seemed possible, and he made it.

      “O Lord, let me get a scholarship and come to Adams’s,” he said very fervently.

      He thought for a moment, but really there seemed to be nothing else that his heart desired.

      “Amen,” he said, and, jumping into bed again, fell asleep.

      Chapter VI

       Table of Contents

      It was the morning of the day before Helmsworth broke up; examinations were over, lists had been read out, and places and removes assigned to those who would reassemble in September, and just now the whole school was employed in the joyful task of packing play-boxes. This was not an affair that usually demanded anxious consideration: it consisted in shying your books into your box and shaking it until the lid consented to close or burst in the attempt. But David on this particular occasion was not sure that it was very joyful, and, as an outward and visible sign of his doubts, he was actually packing his books, fitting them in one with another, that is to say, instead of making salad. Glorious things had happened, and a dazzling future was no doubt to follow, but he was dimly aware that a chapter in life was closing, which in spite of its drawbacks and terrors and annoyances had been jolly. He had been happy, he was aware, without knowing it, and whatever the future held it would not hold this again. No such scruples afflicted Ferrers, who was emptying his locker into his play-box in the manner of a cheerful cataract, holding up for competition anything he did not want.

      “Old Testament Maclear,” he said. “Quis for an old Testament Maclear? List of kings of Israel and Judah in it, with lots of noughts and crosses over it. Lord, I’d like to make a parcel of it and send it to Dubs without any stamps on.”

      David was considering the question of a catapult. In the famous visit to Marchester he had discovered that catapults were scuggy inventions, but he had at present been unable to bring himself to part with this one, so great was its calibre. The stag-beetles he had given to Ferrers Minor the day after his return, and their new owner had sat down on them with total loss of life, a few hours subsequently. And now he hardened himself again.

      “Quis for a catapult?” he said heroically, and a chorus of “Ego” answered him. He threw it to Stone, who had clearly been first with his “Ego.”

      “Rotten things, catapults,” he said, to strengthen himself, “only scugs use them at Marchester.”

      Then he came upon the Smoking Club badge. Since his return from Marchester he had broken with the S. C., but since, as a leaving gift, he had made the club a magnificent present of twenty-five cigarettes and a cherry-wood holder, his defection had not roused unpleasant comment. But the badge had still something of the preciousness of the past about it; he remembered the pride with which, by the assistance of a pair of tweezers, he had shaped the copper wire into the mystic letters. He slipped it into his play-box.

      There was a loose cricket scoring-sheet, which he had craftily torn out of the book, because it showed his own analysis on the day of the Eagles match, and did not record the fact that he had missed the catch which lost them the game. Well, there was no use for that now, any more than for catapults or stag-beetles, since the fellows at Marchester would care precious little what his bowling-analysis had been against a private school of which nobody had ever heard. They had not heard of him either, and at that thought David saw just where his vague regrets and melancholy came from. He had to start all over again on a new page, to part with everything that for its own sake or from familiarity had become dear, to be a nobody again instead of being a big boy in his circle. He had been used to consider himself rather a swell, with an assured position; now he was nobody again, with no position at all. . . . The school sergeant, the minister of fate who brought round the slips of blue paper on which the Head had written the name of culprits whose attendance was required, looked in at this moment.

      “Master Blaize to go to the Head at once,” he said.

      David’s heart stood still, not with fear but with suspense. For the last three days he had hourly expected that news would come of the result of the Marchester scholarship examination, and perhaps this meant its arrival. But his friends thought otherwise, and Ferrers Major rattled his keys and slapped a book with suggestive resonance.

      “Don’t bully me, sir,” he said. “The other hand, sir. Whack, whack, whack, all in the same place! The fellow who was going to take all the wickets in the old boys’ match won’t be able to bowl a ball. Whack, whack. Sobs and cries!”

      “Oh, piffle,” said David getting up.

      That was a word he had brought back from Marchester and was new to the Helmsworth vocabulary. He had distinctly overworked it, with the result that two days ago there had been a “piffle conspiracy” against him. Whatever question, that is to say, that David asked anybody was answered by “Piffle,” which became rather wearing to the nerves. But the conspiracy was short-lived; it had lasted, indeed, only a few hours, since David distinctly announced that he would firmly hit in the face the next fellow who said “Piffle” to him. That checked off the juniors at once; but, unfortunately there were others, and when David the moment after said to Stone, “Will you come and bathe?” Stone said “Piffle.” Immediately afterwards Stone had a black eye, and David a bleeding nose. But he went for the next piffler with undiminished zeal, and the thing had dropped, for it was not worth while fighting David over a little thing like that. He also had dropped the use of the word, and this time it slipped out by accident.

      “And if anybody says ‘Piffle,’ ” he remarked cheerfully, “there’s heaps of time to smash him silly before I go to the Head.”

      This was too high-handed.

      “One,