"Oh!" said he to himself, "I can"t blister you there, Bourne, eh? I can"t pose as the deserving cricketer kept out of the Eleven by a jealous cad of a captain, eh? So I"ll try another tack to keep you in evil odour, Mr. Bourne."
Acton did not turn up at the nets that night, and when Worcester noticed this, Acton calmly sailed on his new tack.
"What"s the good of sweating away at the nets, d.i.c.k? I"ll not get my flannels in any case."
"Oh yes, you will. Bourne has said he"s got nothing against your cricket."
"And you believe that, d.i.c.k?" said Acton, with a whistle of contemptuous incredulity.
"I do," said d.i.c.k. "But you are not exactly quite the flier at cricket that you are at "footer," so you can"t afford to slack up now."
"I"ve got private knowledge," said Acton, with a filthy lie, "that I won"t get "em in any case, so I shall not try."
d.i.c.k was considerably upset by this, and Acton"s sudden stoppage of practice after an intense beginning made his lie seem a good imitation of truth, and gave Worcester food for bitter thoughts against Phil.
Acton worked "the-no-good-to-try" dodge carefully and artistically; he never actually said his lie openly, or Phil would have nailed it to the counter, but, like a second Iago, he dropped little barbed insinuations here, little double-edged sayings there, until Biffenites to a man believed there would be a repet.i.tion of the "footer" cap over again, and the school generally drifted back to aloofness as far as Phil was concerned.
Acton laid himself out to be excessively friendly with the monitors, and just as he entered into their good graces, Phil drifted out of them--in fact, to be friendly with Acton was the same thing as being cool towards Bourne. Phil made splendid scores Sat.u.r.day after Sat.u.r.day, but the enthusiasm which his fine play should have called out was wanting.
"Why don"t you cheer your captain, Tom?" I overheard a father say to his young hopeful.
"No fear!" said the frenzied Biffenite. "Bourne is a beast!"
In fact, the only one who seemed to derive any pleasure from Bourne"s prowess in the field was Acton himself. He used to sit near the flag-staff, and when Phil made his splendid late cut, whose applause was so generous as his? whose joy so great? Acton"s manoeuvres were on the highest artistic levels, I can a.s.sure you, and in the eyes of the fellows generally, his was a case of persecuted forgiving virtue. Acton, too, kept in old Corker"s good books, and his achievements in the way of cla.s.sics made the old master beam upon him with his keen blue eye.
I saw with dismay how persistently unpopular Phil remained, and I heard the charms of Acton sung daily by monitor after monitor, until I saw that Acton had captured the whole body bar Phil"s own staunch friends, Baines, Roberts, and Vercoe. And then it dawned upon me that Acton was making a bid for the captaincy himself, and when I had convinced myself that this was his object, I felt angrier than I can remember. I thereupon wrote to Aspinall, gave him a full, true, and particular account of Acton"s campaign against Phil, and asked him to release me--and Phil--from our promise of secrecy regarding the football-match accident. His reply comforted me, and I knew that, come what might, I had a thunderbolt in my pocket in Aspinall"s letter, which could knock Acton off the Captain"s chair if he tried for that blissful seat.
I told him so, to save trouble later on, and he heard me out with a far from pretty sneer, which, however, did not quite conceal his chagrin.
But though I made sure of his being out of the hunt, I could not make sure of Phil being elected, and in a short time Mivart was mentioned casually as the likeliest fellow to take my place. I have nothing whatever to say against Mivart; he was a good fellow, but he was not quite up to Phil"s level.
Phil knew of these subterranean workings of his enemy, but he was too proud a fellow to try and make any headway against the mining.
"If they elect Mivart they will elect a good man, that is all, though I"d give a lot, old man, to take your place."
Thus things went on until Lord"s came and ended in the usual draw.
Phil"s selection of the Eleven was in every way satisfactory, and his score for first wicket had made St. Amory"s safe from defeat, but, despite all, his unpopularity was p.r.o.nounced.
The election was going to take place in a week, and Mivart, thanks to Acton"s careful "nursing," was evidently going to romp home in the election with something like a sixteen to four majority. Vercoe determined to propose Phil, and Baines was only too delighted to second it; but Phil"s cronies had no more hope of his success than Phil had himself.
CHAPTER XXIX
WHY BIFFEN"S LOST
After the Lord"s match there were two burning subjects of conversation: Who should be captain in my place? and which house should be the c.o.c.k house at cricket? Every house captain looked with dread upon the house of Corker, great alike at cricket and footer, and it was agreed that very probably Phil Bourne would once more lead his men on to victory.
Biffen"s house did not stand much chance, for there was no superlative Acton at cricket; but it was, indeed, mainly through his efforts that Biffen"s was as good as it was. You may remember that Acton had taken under his patronage those dark-skinned dervishes, Singh Ram and Runjit Mehtah. They were unquestionably the best pair of fellows in the school in strictly gymnastic work; and when summer came they showed that they would, sooner or later, do something startling with the bat. The Biffenite captain, d.i.c.k Worcester, did not altogether relish their proficiency. "It"s just my luck to have my eleven filled up with n.i.g.g.e.rs," he observed to Acton in half-humourous disgust; but Biffenites pinned their faith on Worcester, the dervishes, and Acton, and, to the huge delight of Grim, Rogers, Wilson, Thurston, and other enthusiastic junior Biffenites, the resurrected house survived the first two rounds.
The third round they were to meet Taylor"s lot, a good house, and the hopes of Grim and Co. were tinged with considerable doubt.
On the particular afternoon when this important match was to be played, Todd had strolled off to the Lodestone stream, laden with all the necessary tackle for the slaying of a few innocent perch. The year"s final lists of the forms were due also in the evening on the various notice-boards.
Gus had redeemed his promise made at the beginning of the term, and had worked hard for a prominent position on the list, and his attempt to capture the history medal had been, he thought, fairly satisfactory. He would soon know his fate, however, in both directions. Meanwhile, to allay his anxiety as to the results, he had unpatriotically given the cricket-fields a wide berth, and thus deprived Taylor"s of the privilege of his cheer in the house match. He and Cotton had an invitation to dine with Taylor that evening, so, after telling Jim his programme for the afternoon, he had trudged down the lane which Jack Bourne knew so well.
The afternoon was hot: the one-o"clock sun made Gus think that perhaps there was more cruelty than usual in luring the fishes out of the cool waters of the Lodestone; but, nevertheless, he philosophically baited his hook, and cast forth. The sport was not exciting, and by-and-by Gus found himself wondering, not why the fish were so shy, but whence came the faint, delicate perfume of cigars, which undoubtedly reached his nostrils? The Lodestone Farm was a quarter of a mile away, and obviously the scent could not travel thus far, and since Gus was alone on the banks of the stream, running sluggishly towards the moat, the constant whiffs of cigars reaching him seemed somewhat mysterious. Gus looked again carefully, but could see no one, and yet there was undoubtedly some one smoking very near him.
"Well, it _is_ odd," said Gus, for the nth time sniffing the "tainted breeze." Curiosity piqued the fisher to trace the mystery. He reconnoitred carefully, and presently fancied he could hear the faint murmur of voices. This proceeded from the boat-house, wherein Hill moored the moat punt. "I"ll just make a reconnaissance in force," said Gus, putting down his rod. Arrived at the punt-house, Gus peeped in through the slightly open door, and discovered no less important personages than Runjit Mehtah and "Burnt Lamb." The two dervishes were lolling luxuriantly on the punt cushions, each smoking a fine fat cigar, and the combined efforts of the two gave quite an Oriental air of magnificence to the ramshackle boat-house.
"Hallo!" said Gus. "What the deuce are you doing?"
The cigars nearly fell from the mouth of each of the smokers as Gus appeared on the scene, but when the smokers made out Todd"s face through the haze, Mehtah said, with much relief--
"Oh, talking."
"That isn"t quite a true bill," said Gus. "Your Flora Fina de Cabbagios keep the fish from biting."
"Have one," said Burnt Lamb, hospitably offering Todd a cigar.
"No thanks. Is this punt-house your usual lounge?"
"Sometimes," said Mehtah. "We can"t do without our smoke, and we can"t do it, you know, at the school."
"No, that you jolly well can"t, my dusky Oth.e.l.lo. But aren"t you two booked for the Houser"s this afternoon? I thought you were the backbone of Biffen"s."
"The match is not for an hour yet," said Lamb.
"Oh yes," said Mehtah, "we"re going to sit on your house this afternoon, Todd."
At this most interesting point of the conversation the door of the punt-house was violently slammed to, and Gus was propelled forward clean into the punt and received hurriedly into the unexpectant arms of Burnt Lamb. Before any of the three could understand what had happened there was a hurried fumbling with the staple and pin of the punt-house door from the outside, and then an equally hurried retreat of footsteps.
"Well, I"m hanged!" said Gus, after he had picked himself up and tried the door. "We"re locked in."
Young Rogers and Wilson, who had done this fell deed, hoped there was no doubt about the locking. This couple of ornaments had immediately after dinner s.n.a.t.c.hed their caps and ran on past the Lodestone Farm for a particular purpose. They had found a yellowhammer"s nest a day or so before, containing one solitary egg, and their hurried run was for the purpose of seeing if there was any increase, and if so--well, the usual result. They were anxious to get back to the cricket-field in time to shout and generally give their house a leg-up when the Houser with Taylor"s commenced, and their friend Grim had strict orders to bag them each seats, front row, in the pavilion. They had been busy blowing eggs for pretty well twenty minutes, and, as they were lazily returning schoolwards, they caught sight of Gus watching his float.
"There"s Gus Todd trying to hook tiddlers," said Rogers.
"Shy a stone," suggested Wilson, "and wake "em up."
"Rot! There"s no cover."
"It"s only Todd," said Wilson. "What"s the odds?"
"Yes, but not quite the old a.s.s. Better get home."
Keeping well out of sight, the two cronies had watched with curiosity Todd"s manoeuvres as he tried to run the cigar-smokers to earth. When Gus entered the punt-house, a bright idea struck Wilson.
"Say, Rogers, remember Toddy locking us in the laboratory last term? Two hundred Virgil."