David Blaize

David opened with an appalling stroke, that would have been easily caught by cover, if only Wace had not moved him, and thereupon Wace brought him in again. So David, with an even worse stroke, spooned the ball over his head, so that if he had not been moved the second time, he must have caught it. For this he scored one amid derisive and exultant yells, and Maddox hit at him with his bat as they crossed each other. And there were four more runs to get.

Then the end came. Maddox played two balls with great care, and the unfortunate Wace then sent him a full pitch to leg. There came the sound of the striking bat; next moment the ball bounded against the palings by the pavilion. And Maddox had played his last house-match.

Frank waited to see the ball hit the palings, and then ran across the pitch to David.

“Didn’t I tell you so?” he said. “And wasn’t it ripping that you and I should do that? Hullo, they’re coming for us. Let’s run.”

All round the ground the crowd had broken up wildly shouting, some going towards the pavilion, but others, headed by a detachment from Adams’s, streaming out on to the pitch. The two boys ran towards the pavilion, dodging the first few of these, but both were caught and carried in starfishwise. Then again and again, first Maddox alone, then both together, they had to come out on to the balcony, while the house and school generally shouted itself hoarse for this entrancing finish. Indeed, the honours were fairly divided, for if Maddox’s batting had saved the situation to-day, the situation would have been impossible to save if it had not been for David’s bowling yesterday. Then by degrees the crowd dispersed, and the shouting died, and the two sat for a while there, the happiest pair perhaps in all England, blunt and telegraphic with each other.

“David, you little devil,” said Frank. “Frightful cheek, your hitting that four. Second ball you received, too.”

David gave a cackle of laughter.

“Don’t rub it in,” he said. “I apologised. Juicy shot, too. I say, Tomlin sent you down an over of corkers after that.”

“Nearly spewed with anxiety,” said Frank. “Absolute limit of an over.”

“Wicked fellow, Tomlin,” quoth David. “Glad I didn’t get any of them.”

“So’m I, damn glad. Else – ”

“Of course nobody can bat except yourself,” said David.

“You can’t, anyhow.”

“But we’ve won.”

“Have we really? Don’t interrupt. I should have added that you can bowl.”

“You can’t,” said David, getting level.

“No, filthy exercise. I’ll take you down to bathe, if you don’t bar washing, and then I’ll take you to school shop, and you may eat all there is. Lucky I’m flush.”

“Right oh, thanks awfully,” said David. “But you won’t be flush long.”

They got up to go, but at the door Maddox paused.

“Best of all the days I’ve had at school, David,” he said.

“Same here,” said David.

School bathing did not begin for another hour, but Maddox had the sixth-form privilege of bathing whenever he chose, and Adams, whom they ran to catch up on their way down, gave David leave to go with him. He had dutifully and delightedly watched every ball of the match, and had helped to carry David into the pavilion as there was no chance of assisting at the entry of Maddox.

“Yes, by all means, yes, you – you blest pair of sirens,” he said, quoting from the Milton Ode which was to be sung at concert at the end of the term. “And take care of David, Jonathan, and don’t let him sink from being top-heavy with pride. We shall want him to bowl next year.”

They trotted on for a little, in order to arrive at the bathing-place in the greatest possible heat.

“I say, wasn’t that ripping of him?” said David. “Didn’t know he knew we were pals.”

“Jolly cute,” observed Maddox.

“But how did he know? We don’t go about together in public. Lord, here’s the Head coming. Lucky I’ve got leave.”

They had gone through the gate into the master’s garden, beyond which lay the bathing-place. This was penetrable only by masters and by the sixth-form, and there was no turning back, or avoiding what was to David a rather formidable meeting. It was quite illogical that he should find it so, since he had leave, but he had not met the Head since the interview in the disused class-room, and the halo of terror still shone about his head.

He nodded kindly to the boys as they dropped into walking pace and took their caps off, and then stopped.

“Fine innings of yours, Maddox,” he said. “I congratulate you. You too, Blaize. A lot to expect, wasn’t it, that you should bowl Mr. Tovey’s eleven out one day, and keep up your wicket to win the match the next? Very glad you did it successfully.”

David, still rather awed, shifted from one foot to the other.

“Thanks awfully, sir,” he said. “I – I’ve got leave to bathe from Mr. Adams.”

The Head looked at him a moment, with a certain merriment lurking below his gravity.

“Quite sure?” he asked.

David saw this was a joke, and laughed.

“I want just a word with you, Maddox,” said the Head. “Will you go on, Blaize?”

The Head waited a moment.

“It’s about Blaize I wanted to speak to you, Maddox,” he said. “How is he getting on? I had to give him a good whipping last term. Is he more – more rational?”

“He’s come on tremendously sir,” said Maddox. “He’s getting on excellently.”

“I’m glad you think that, because I believe he’s one of the most promising boys we’ve got, and you know him, I should think, better than any of us.”

Maddox wondered how on earth the Head knew that. Adams might know; but how did the Head?

“I don’t want his cricket to interfere with his work,” he said. “The middle fifth had to write an essay last week, and I told Mr. Howliss to send them in to me to look over. All but two or three were dreadful rubbish, but Blaize’s was excellent. And, as you’re a Trinity scholar as well as being captain of the eleven, you can see my point of view. Do you think he’s getting cricket out of focus? He ought to be higher in his form, you know.”

Maddox shook his head.

“Oh, I don’t think Blaize is a bit unbalanced about his cricket, sir,” he said. “I always rub it in that cricket doesn’t matter. At least I usually do, though I didn’t to-day, because I couldn’t after he’d bowled like that. But I’ll rub it in again after to-morrow.”

“Why after to-morrow?” asked the Head.

“Because I was going to put him into the twenty-two to-night sir, though he doesn’t know yet, and I must let him enjoy it a bit. And then there’s the eleven against the sixteen on Saturday next, and after his whole record in house-matches, it’s just a question whether he oughtn’t to play for the eleven. There are four places left.”

The Trinity scholar had certainly got absorbed in the captain of the eleven.

“You mean he has a chance of his school-colours?” asked the Head.

“Yes, sir, if he goes on developing like this,” said Maddox. “It’s five weeks yet to the Lords match, and it’s easily possible he may be the best slow bowler in the school.”

Maddox paused a moment.

“He’ll have to practice a lot,” he said, “and he’ll have to think about it a lot. Three-quarters of a slow bowler is brains, you know, sir. Or would you rather I didn’t try to bring him on at cricket? He wouldn’t notice; he hasn’t the slightest idea how good he is. And even if he had – ”

“Well?” said the Head.

Maddox dropped the surname altogether.

“You see, David’s the best chap who ever lived,” he said, “and we’re tremendous friends. If I didn’t put him in the twenty-two even he’d think it was perfectly all right. As you’ve talked to me about him, sir, I want to tell you that I’ll do what you think best for him. I should naturally put him into the twenty-two this evening, because he deserves it, and, as I said, I was thinking of playing for the eleven next week. But if you think not, if you think it would do him more good all round to be kept back, well, I will. But there’s no fellow in the school less uppish, if you mean that.”

That was all the Head wanted; he had got at David’s character, as seen by Maddox, with far more completeness than Maddox knew.

“Do just what seems best to you as captain of the eleven,” he said. “But there are lots of you fellows who want watching, and it takes work off my shoulders if I know that you elder and steady men are doing some watching for me. Good luck to both of you. If you live till ninety, you’ll never find a better thing than a friend. At least I haven’t.”

Maddox found David wallowing in the tepid water, and at intervals making hazardous experiments from the high header-board. This was instructive as showing the flight of heavy bodies through space, and was occasionally followed by further interesting results as showing what happened when these heavy bodies flatly met a flat and incompressible material. Thereafter they went to school shop, and David ate his way, so to speak, from in at one door to out at the other. This was a long and sumptuous process, for the place was full, and congratulations were hurled at them. Tomlin, the diabolical, was there among the crowd, taking his defeat in a wide-minded manner.

“Thought you had me once or twice during your last over,” said Maddox to him. “Fiendish over, Tommy.”

Tommy considered this.

“’Twasn’t a very bad one,” he said. “I think I should have liked to have sent it down to Blaize instead of you. Jolly good match, though. Hullo, Blaize! You’re a rotten bad bat you know. I’ll stand you both strawberry-mess.”

It was perfectly impossible for David not to feel elated at sitting down to strawberry-mess with two members of the eleven, in the full light of day, and in sight of the school generally, or, having dreamed night and day of being “some good” in house-matches, not to feel exalted when those dreams had merged into realities that so far exceeded all his imaginings. But in a little while Maddox and Tomlin began to speak in undertones, and David rose, with the sense that private conversation was going forward.

“I think I’ll be getting back to house,” he said. “Thanks awfully for the strawberry-mess, Tomlin.”

“Wait a minute,” said Maddox. “I’m coming down in a second. Go and blow yourself out a little more.”

David thought it the part of wisdom not to do that, and strolled outside to wait for his friend. Glorious as all those things had been there was nothing so glorious as that Frank and he had been associated in them. That friendship meant more to him than cricket, or this sort of open recognition of itself. Till now their ages and places in the school had necessarily divided them in public; and so to-day it was best of all the delicious happenings when Frank joined him, and they went off together.

“The Head asked after you this afternoon, David,” said Frank. “Made inquiries. I told him you were fairly rotten.”

David did not rise at this.

“You always stick up for a chap,” he observed. “Anything else?”

“Yes. I may as well tell you, as everybody else will know by chapel-time. Fact is, I’m putting you into the twenty-two to-night. And on Saturday, next week, you’re playing in the eleven and sixteen match for the eleven.”

David stopped quite dead. And then he thought he saw. Frank had tried to get a rise out of him just now and failed, and of course was trying again. It wasn’t really quite nice of him to try to get a rise out of him over such matters, but then he didn’t know how dreadfully David cared.

“Oh! Jolly funny!” he said, and walked on again.

“David, do you think I’m such a brute as to try to get a rise out of you with that sort of thing?” asked Frank.

“B-b-but do you mean it’s true?” asked David suddenly stammering.

“Yes, you ass. That’s what I wanted to consult Tommy about, and he agrees. We can’t have a kid like you bowling the eleven out, so you’ve jolly well got to bowl the sixteen out instead. And I’ll take away your twenty-two cap, if you don’t.”

“Oh, Frank, I can’t quite believe it,” said David. “What’s it all for? What have I done?”

“That’s one of your bad points, as I told the Head,” said Frank. “I said you were filthily conceited.”

“Lord!” said David.

“Well, congratters on your twenty-two. And you can bring your preparation to my study if you like, and I’ll give you a construe. I haven’t got any work to do myself.”

“Comes of being a scholar of Trinity,” remarked David, and fled.

Frank had written out the list of promotions into the twenty-two when David came to his study with a copy of “Œdipus Coloneus,” which was his lesson for next day, and he pushed it over to him.

“I’ve stuck you in first,” he said, “to prepare for your appearance next Saturday. Now we’ll leave the silly business alone. What’s your work? ‘Œdipus Coloneus’?”

“Yes; twenty-five lines of a chorus that’s simply beastly,” said David, finding his place. “There; line 668.”

Frank looked over his shoulder.

“Oh, it’s not without merit,” he said. “Now look out every word you don’t know, and then try to make something of it for half an hour. After that, I’ll give you a construe. No talking.”

“Oh, won’t you construe it first?” asked David. “It’ll save me a lot of trouble.”

“And did you suppose I wanted to save you trouble?” asked Frank.

David sighed.

“Thought you might,” he said. “It’s rather flat working after this afternoon.”

“No, it isn’t. You’ve got to learn that people like Sophocles matter more than any silly house-match.”

“’Twasn’t a silly house-match,” said David.

“Don’t talk!”

David looked round.

“Lend me your dictionary, then,” he said. “I’ve left mine in my study.”

David had a very vivid sense of the beauty of words, and though it took him some time to whistle his mind away from the splendours of the afternoon and from the glories of that list that lay on the table, which would soon be displayed before the eyes of the entire school, he became conscious before long that the words of the “beastly chorus” which was open before him were beautiful things, and that their meanings, so his dictionary told him, were beautiful also, for it was all about horses, and nightingales, and thickets, and ivy the colour of wine – this was rather puzzling unless perhaps it meant crème de menthe– and clustering narcissus. Then by degrees he became absorbed in it, and all the time was slightly ashamed at being able to be interested in a mere Greek chorus, when his name lay on the table as heading the list of promotions into the twenty-two. But his absorption gained on him.

“Why, it’s ripping!” he said to himself under his breath, and, whistling softly, hunted up another jewel of a word. Then he lost himself again, diving into wonderful translucent depths.

“Gosh! I’ve done more than twenty-five lines,” he said at length, “and I never noticed. I say, give me a construe, Frank; I’ve been more than half an hour. I want to hear how it sounds in English.”

Frank drew his chair up to David’s, so that they could both share the same book.

“Right oh,” he said, “but let me read it through first.”

This was the education of David, and Frank was tremendously anxious to construe the beautiful passage well, and he took some five minutes more going over it, while David’s glance fed on the list of the twenty-two promotions. Then he began.

“Stranger,” he said. “Blast it; that won’t do: it sounds American.”

“Guest?” suggested David.

“Yes; that’s better. ‘O guest in this land of horsemen, thou hast come to the most fair of earth’s homes, to gleaming Kolonos, frequented by the nightingale that bubbles liquidly in the shelter of green glades, making his habitation amid the wine-dark ivy, and the untrodden bowers of the god, myriad-berried, unseen of the sun, where Dionysus, master of revels, ever treads, companied by the nymphs that nursed him.’ ”

“O-o-oh!” said David, pushing back his yellow hair, and still rather shy of liking this.

“ ‘And, fed with heavenly dew, the sweet clusters of the narcissus are flowering morn by morn, the immemorial crown of the great goddesses, and the golden-beamed crocus is a-blossom. Nor dwindle ever the sleepless springs whence come the wandering waters of the Kephissus, but every day he flows in stainless tides over the plains of earth’s ripening bosom, giving speedy increase, nor have the choirs of Muses abhorred the spot, nor golden-reined Aphrodite.’ ”

Maddox paused.

“That’s your twenty-five lines,” he said.

“Oh, ripping,” said David. “It really is. Absolute A1. Do go on.”

“I told you it had merit,” said Frank, and proceeded to the end of the chorus.

“Why, it’s better than ‘Atalanta,’ ” said David at the conclusion, despite his barbarian instinct that things like the beauties of Greek literature might perhaps be thought about, but hardly talked of. Maddox, however, had no such notions.

“Of course it is,” he said. “And some time, if you work frightfully hard, and love it all, you’ll find, as the Head told us the other day, that you simply laugh at the thought of translating it at all. You’ll know it can’t be translated, and that will be the reward of your work, for it will mean that Greek has got into your blood, that it’s part of you.”

“Do you mean the Head’s like that?” asked David. “All the same, I think I would sooner translate it like you.”

“You don’t understand, but you would if you had heard him the other day. We had a Plato lesson with him, but instead of going through a single line of it, something set him off, and he talked to us for the whole hour about Athens and the life they led there. You never heard anything so splendid. You could go up to the Acropolis in the morning, and look at the frieze Pheidias had put up in the Parthenon, a procession of horses and boys riding to the temple on Athene’s birthday. He showed us pictures of it; some were mounted, – oh Lord, they had good seats – and others were still putting their horses’ bridles on, and one horse was rubbing its foreleg with its nose, or t’other way round.”

“Pheidias?” asked David.

“Yes; biggest sculptor there’s ever been, far ahead of Michelangelo or Rodin or any one. And when you had seen that, you and your friend – you and me, that is – would sit on the wall of the Acropolis looking over the town out to the mountains, the purple crown of mountains, as they called them, Hymettus where the honey came from, and Pentelicus, where they got the marble for the Parthenon, and another one – what’s its name? – oh, Parnes. Then to the south you would look over the sea, all blue and dim, out towards Salamis which, as the Head said, was the Trafalgar of Athens, where they beat those stinking Persians; and then we should lunch off grapes and figs, and cheese wrapped up in vine-leaves, and yellow wine, and go down to the theatre just below to hear perhaps this very play by Sophocles, first performance, and no end of an excitement. Then perhaps we should see Pericles, awfully handsome chap, and the biggest Prime Minister there ever was, and a queer, ugly fellow would go by, who would be Socrates. And all the boys and young men were fearfully keen about games, quite as keen as we are, because they used to date the year by the Olympic games, same as we use a. d., or b. c… Lord, I’m jawing; I wish I could tell it you as the Head did.”

“Oh, go on,” said David.

“Well, it wasn’t only games that they were so keen about. They loved sculpture and painting and writing so much, that no one ever touched them at it, before or since. It was the consummate age, so the Head said. And then, when it came to fighting, a little potty place like Attica, no bigger than a small English county, just wiped the Persians up. In everything, so the Head told us, the Athenians of the great age were the type of the perfect physical and intellectual life. Oh, David, let’s save up and go to Athens.”

“Rather! But why did the Romans walk over them?”

Frank got up; the bell for chapel had begun.

“Because they became corrupt and beastly.”

“What an awful pity! I say, you made me feel awfully keen with that construe, and telling me what the Head said. I haven’t thought about the twenty-two for – for ten minutes. And one’s got to try to get at it all by sapping?”

“Yes; that’s how you’ll get to love it.”

“Sounds almost worth while,” said David. “But they liked games as well. That’s a comfort.”

Frank took up his straw hat; he took up also the list that lay on the table.

“Come on,” he said. “I want to put this up on the notice-board before chapel.”

“Oh, don’t,” said David. “All the fellows will see it, and I shall turn crimson when we stand up for the psalms.”

“Bosh; every one expects it.”

David’s volatile mind went back to the Greek talk.

“Pheidias, was it?” he said.

“Yes: sculptor-man,” said Frank.

David, usually a solid sleeper, could not take his usual plunge into the dim depths that night on getting into bed, but he did not make any particular effort to do so, for it was really waste of time not to lie awake when there were so many delightful things to think about. Round and round in his head they turned, like some bright wheel, and now it was the events of the last three days (house-match, in other words) now the more immediate happenings of the evening, his promotion into the twenty-two, and the much huger honour of playing for the eleven next week that sparkled on the wheel, or again this sudden illumination with regard to the Greeks fed his contemplation. Up till now it had not been real to him that the people who wrote these tedious or difficult things which he had to learn were once as alive as himself, or that beauty had inspired them to make plays and statues, even as beauty had inspired Keats and Swinburne. Until Frank had given him the gist of the Head’s discourse, he never thought of those plays as being performed in a theatre, before an audience, who had not to look up words and learn the grammar, and consider what governed an apparently isolated genitive, or account for an irregular aorist. They were not bookworms and scholars, but men and boys who ran races and crowned the victor, and had their Trafalgar just as if they were English… It was all vague, but decidedly there was a new light on matters concerning Sophocles.

But, permeating all these things, was their inspiring spirit, Frank, who lay in the bed next him, whose face he could dimly see in the light from the unblinded open window just opposite. And then for the first time it was borne in upon David with a sense of reality that in a few weeks more, five and a piece, to be accurate, Frank would have left. At that thought all the pleasant and interesting things which had so delightfully entertained this waking hour was struck from his mind, and he sat up in bed giving a little despairing groan.

“Hullo!” said Frank softly. “You awake too? What’s the groaning about?”

“Oh, nothing,” said David, lying down again.

“Well, then, what isn’t it about?”

David slewed round in bed facing him, as he leaned on his elbow.

“It’s only five weeks to the end of the half,” he whispered, “and – and you don’t come back.”

“I know; it’s foul. I was thinking of it myself. It’s been keeping me awake.”

David was silent a minute; then Frank spoke again.

“I’m sorry to leave for a whole heap of reasons,” he said. “One more than any.”

“What’s that?” said David.

“Fellow called Blaize. Thought I should just like to tell you. Now don’t groan any more. Go to sleep, you swell in the twenty-two.”

“Right oh, fellow called Maddox,” said David.