“Look here,” murmured Saurin, turning on him fiercely; “if it is as you think, you take advantage of it, which is just as bad. We are in the same boat, and must sink or swim together. What is done cannot be undone; don’t be a fool. If your weakness excites suspicion it will be ruin to both of us.”
“I know, I know,” said Edwards, turning away with loathing.
They hated the sight of one another now, these two inseparables. What revolted Edwards most of all was the other’s insinuation about Crawley. It was all of a piece with his conduct when Buller was accused of that poaching business, and showed his true character. Days went by and they never spoke to one another of the shameful secret they shared, and indeed rarely on any other subject. They would have avoided all association if it had not been for the fear of exciting suspicion. They were more attentive to their studies, and at the same time took a more prominent part in the school games than either had done for a long time:
Edwards, because it was his natural bent to do so when freed from other influences; and Saurin, partly from prudence, partly because he was making a struggle to escape from the net which he felt that evil habits had thrown around him. He was like one who has been walking in a fog along the brink of a precipice, and discovers his position by setting a foot on the very edge and nearly falling over. He shrank from the abyss which he now saw yawning for him. At the same time he exerted himself to become popular, and since he was no longer anxious to thrust himself perpetually into the foremost place, he was not without success.
“What a much better fellow Saurin is now he has given up going to that Slam’s yard!” said one of his intimates, and his hearers acquiesced. He had never repeated that abominable hint about the possibility of Crawley’s not having lost the money at all; but Gould had taken up the idea, and the gossip had spread, as such ill-natured talk about any one who is popular or in a higher position than others, is sure to do. Very few, if any, really believed that there was a grain of truth in the notion, but some thought it clever to talk as if they did, just to be different from the majority. Others might jump to a conclusion, swallowing all that the popular idol chose to tell them, but they withheld their judgment. Unluckily these rumours reached Crawley’s ears; some friendly ass “thought he ought to know,” as is always the case when anything unpleasant is said, and it fretted and annoyed him exceedingly.
It also had the effect of annulling a movement which was being set on foot to make up the missing money by subscription, the notion of which emanated curiously enough from the same source as the scandal. Saurin had thrown out the hint as a sneer, not a suggestion, but it was taken up by some honest lad in the latter sense. It had been submitted to the masters, who not only approved but were anxious to head the subscription, and the whole thing could have been done at once without anyone feeling it. But Crawley called a special meeting, and the pupil-room was crammed to overflowing this time to hear what he had to say, which was this: “I have asked you to come for a personal and not a public reason. I am told that it is proposed to raise a subscription to make up the four pounds twelve the fund has been robbed of. Now, though I was perhaps not careful enough, I could hardly expect my keys to be taken out of a coat and the box opened during a short absence, and so I should have been very glad not to have to bear this loss, for which, of course, I am solely responsible, alone. But some kind friends (Gould, I believe, started the idea) are pleased to say that I have robbed myself; that is, I have spent the money intrusted to me and invented the story of a robbery.” (“Oh! oh! shame! shame!”) “Well, yes, I think it was rather a shame, and I am glad you are indignant about it. But the accusation having been once made, of course I cannot accept the kind suggestion to make the loss good.”
There was a great hubbub and loud protestations, but Crawley was firm. His honour was at stake, he said, and he must repay the money himself; then his traducers at all events could not say that he had profited by holding the office of treasurer. Those who had indulged in idle innuendoes were heartily ashamed and sorry, and Gould for a short time was the most unpopular boy in the school. Crawley cut him dead.
The day following this special meeting was Saturday, exactly one week after the robbery, and the day appointed for the football match between the houses of Head-master and Cookson. I fear that a detailed account of this match would hardly interest you, for this reason. The Head-master, whose scholarship and capacity worked up Weston to that state of prosperity which it has maintained ever since, was an Etonian, and the games instituted under his auspices were played according to Eton rules. Dr Jolliffe had also been educated at the same school, and thought everything connected with it almost sacred. So it happened that the Rugby game of hand-and-football had never supplanted the older English pastime, which it has now become so much the fashion to despise, and which, indeed, if it were not for the Eton clubs at Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere, might disappear as the national rats did before the Hanoverian. The Westonians then used round, not oblong footballs; their object was to work the ball between the goal-posts, not over a bar at the top of them; and it was unlawful to touch it with the hands unless caught in the air, and then only for a drop-kick.
I do not advocate one game more than the other; both to my thinking are excellent, and I have no sympathy with those who would suppress every pastime which is fraught with some roughness and danger. The tendency of civilisation is naturally towards softness, effeminacy, and a dread of pain or discomfort; and these evils are far more serious than bruises, sprains, broken collar-bones, or even occasionally a more calamitous accident.
However, the chances are that my reader is all in favour of the Rugby game, and would therefore follow the changes and chances of the present match with but little interest. It was exciting enough, however, to those who were engaged in it, for Cookson’s made a better fight of it than their opponents expected. They had been practising with great pains, and their team worked well together and backed each other up excellently. So that, quite early in the match, the ball having been some time at their end, and they acting solely on the defensive, Jolliffe’s thought they were going to carry all before them and got a little rash and careless; those who should have kept back to guard their own end pressing too far forwards, when Edwards, who was fleet of foot and really good at seizing chances, got a clear kick at the ball which sent it over the heads of the attackers into the middle of the field, and, getting through to it again, began dribbling it towards the hostile goal with a series of short kicks, having a start of the field, who, seeing their error, were now racing back to their own end. The goal-keeper dashed out and met Edwards in full career, both kicking the ball at the same time; but another on the Cookson side, who had been keeping close in view of such a contingency, got a fair chance at the ball, which slipped sideways from the two, and sent it sheer between the posts, scoring a goal for Cookson’s.