“I was sorry for old Dig, but he won the Shell wide jump directly afterwards. I made a mess of the half-mile. I ought to have got it from Smythe, of the School-house; but all I could do was to dead heat his time. I suppose I was fagged after the hurdles. Tilbury had it all his own way with the Shell cricket-ball, and Stafford got the senior throw. Felgate was in against him—rather a decent chap, one of our prefects; had me to tea in his room the other day. He and Marky don’t hit it. He was lazy, and didn’t bother himself. Fellows said he could easily have licked the School record if he’d tried; but he didn’t; and Stafford missed it by a few inches. So that event we lost. Jolly sell, joli vendre.
“Never mind, we got the mile, and that was the crackest thing of all. We had to beat Smedley and Branscombe, both—only Branscombe—he’s Bickers’s prefect—didn’t run it out last week. Smedley’s time was 4.50. Ainger and Stafford ran for us; and Ranger was put on the track with 200 yards start to force the pace.
“Stafford was out of it easily; but Ranger stuck to it like a Trojan. The first lap he was still a hundred yards to the good, and going like steam. Ainger ran finely, and overhauled him gradually. Still he had about twenty yards to the good at the beginning of the last lap. Then it was fine to see Ainger tuck in his elbows and let himself out. A quarter of a mile from home Ranger was clean out of it, regularly doubled up; but Ainger kept on steadily for a couple of hundred yards.
“Then, my word, he spurted right away to the finish! You never saw such a rush up as it was! The fellows yelled, I can let you know. Every one knew that it was our event the second the spurt began, and when he got up to the tape and ‘4.42’ was shouted out, it was a sight to see the state we were in. It’s the best mile we ever did at Grandcourt, and even Smedley, though he was a bit riled, I fancy, at his licking, said he couldn’t have done it in the time if he’d tried.
“I send you Dig’s programme, with the times all marked. You’ll see we won them all except the senior cricket-ball, half-mile, and senior hundred. It’s a rattling good score for us, I can tell you; and we cheered Marky like one o’clock. It was an awful sell Violet couldn’t give away our prizes; but she shied at it. I suppose old Pony would have gruffed at her. She is the most beautiful girl in the world.
“You needn’t go telling the mater, but I was off my feed a whole day after the sports. How soon do fellows get money enough to marry? If I get the Swift Scholarship I shall have £20 a-year for three years—something to start with. I wish you’d come down and give me a leg-up. I’m afraid that cad Smedley’s got his eye on her. His father’s only a doctor. We’re better off than that, besides being chummy with a baronet. Hullo! there’s the bell for cubicles. Ta, ta. Je suis très miserable. Your aff. A.H.”
Little dreaming of the sad blight which had come over his future young kinsman’s life, Railsford was sitting in his room that Sunday evening, feeling rather more than usually comfortable. He had some cause to be pleased. His house had done better than anyone expected. They had beaten all the records but three, and, without being specially conceited, Railsford took to himself the credit of having done a good deal to bring about this satisfactory result.
“Curious,” said he to himself, “that in all probability, if that affair of Bickers’s had not happened, we might never have risen as a house; indeed, it’s almost a mercy the culprit has never been discovered, for we should have then been plunged back into the current, and the work of pulling ourselves together might never have been done. It’s odd that, as time goes on, there is not even a hint or a suspicion who did it. There’s only one boy in the house I’m not sure of, and he is too great a coward to be a ruffian. Well, well, we have the cricket season and the exams, coming on. If only we do as well in them as we’ve done in the sports, it will not be altogether against us if the mystery remains a mystery a little longer.”
Whereupon the door opened and Mr Bickers stepped in. Railsford had completely forgotten the episode in the fields the previous day; he scarcely recollected that Mr Bickers had been present at the sports, and was delightfully oblivious to the fact that he, Railsford, had either slighted or offended his colleague. He wondered what was the occasion of the present visit, and secretly resolved to keep both his temper and his head if he could.
“Good-evening,” said he, with a friendly smile. “I’m just going to have my coffee; won’t you have a cup too, Bickers?”