“I had Crawley to stay with me at Christmas, you know,” he said. “He’s a good fellow; pity he’s so awfully poor. He had never been in a decent house before, and was awfully astonished. He had what they call ‘the keeper’s gun,’ a ten-pound thing; our head-keeper twigged it. Good gun enough, I daresay, but not what a gentleman has for himself. But he could not use it; worst shot I ever met, by Jove! I showed him a thing or two, and he began to improve by my hints. He is not above taking hints, I will say that for him; and his riding! Why, I thought from those prints in his room that he was ever such a swell; but I don’t believe he was ever outside a horse before. Even the ploughmen laughed at him. ‘Get inside and pull up the windows!’ they called out.”
And so he went on, somewhat exaggerating all Crawley’s failures, not so much out of any ill-will as for self-glorification. You may know the pastime of boring a hole through a chestnut, threading it on a string, and fighting it against other chestnuts: if you hit on a very tough chestnut, and with it broke another one, it is, or used to be the rule that your chestnut counted all the victories of the one it split in addition to its own, of which a careful account was kept. So that if a chestnut was a fiver, and it beat a tenner, it became at one leap a fifteener. In something the same way Gould had an idea he might score by Crawley, who was thought so much of for his proficiency in many things. If he himself was so much richer, such a better rider and shot, it ought to be assumed that if he took the trouble he could also beat him at cricket, football, mathematics, German, and freehand drawing. It was not very logical, and indeed he did not put the matter to himself so nakedly as that, but that was the sort of idea which influenced him nevertheless.
At the same time I fear that there may have been a little spite in his feelings too; he had been a good deal snubbed by his sister Clarissa for introducing a friend who had gone far to spoil her triumph in the play she had got up with such pains and forethought, and he much regretted having ever asked him. Gould’s bragging would not have been much believed, only Crawley confirmed it. “Yes,” he said, “I went to stay with Gould’s people; very kind of them to ask me. They live in grand style; I thought I had got to Windsor Castle by mistake at first. I should have enjoyed it immensely if they had not made me act in private theatricals, which I hate, and I am afraid I came to utter grief over it. Took me out snipe-shooting; did you ever shoot at a snipe? bad bird to hit; Gould got some. I suppose one would pick up the knack of it in time. And, yes, we went out with the harriers; I had never sat a horse when he jumped anything before, and I came a couple of croppers. But it was great fun, and I did not hurt myself. Gould did not get a fall, oh no; he is used to it.”
A good many were rather disgusted with Gould when he talked in the way he did, and Buller let him see it. “It’s awfully bad form to ask a fellow to your house, and then boast that he can’t do things that he never tried before, so well as you can,” he blurted out.
“Oh, of course, we and know that Crawley is perfect in your eyes,” sneered Gould.
“That’s rot,” said Buller elegantly; “but I do know this, that you might have practised anything you know, shooting, riding, anything, all your life, and if Crawley had a week’s practice he would beat your head off at it; come, then, I’ll bet you what you like.”
“That is impossible to prove.”
“No matter, it does not need proof; every fellow with eyes in his head must see it. But that’s nothing. If you were ever so much better it would be just as mean to brag about it.”
Crawley had no idea that Gould bore him any grudge, and being grateful to him for his invitation, sought to give him those opportunities of intimacy which he had evidently coveted before. But it was Gould now who drew back, somewhat to the other’s relief, for he could not bring himself to care much about him.
Well, all this foolish talk of Gould’s did have a certain effect: a good many boys lost some faith in their idol, and began to suspect that its feet might be of clay. And then Crawley took to reading very hard that term, for his time for trying to get into Woolwich was approaching, and he was very anxious not to fail; and this made him less sociable, which affected his popularity. It did not interfere with his sports; he was as energetic at football as ever, and took his usual pains to make the boys pay up their subscriptions, for he was secretary and treasurer. But that was not exactly a genial duty, though everybody was glad that somebody else would take the trouble. And for the rest, he was now always working hard or playing hard.