He stalked out, rocking slightly as he went, and instantly, the oppression of his anger being gone, the spirits of the class rose sky-high.
“Jolly decent of him,” said Ferrers. “Gosh, I’m glad he didn’t take us in the study.”
“I say, Blazes, I wouldn’t have my mouth washed with Bags’s sponge. It’ll be fit to poison you. Why, do you know what he does with his sponge?”
Loathsome details, invented on the spur of the moment, followed.
“Fancy being washed by Bags at all,” said Stone. “He don’t know how to wash himself yet!”
“Stone, you fool, why the devil couldn’t you tell the Head that Dubs had taken the Catechism?” This from Bags.
“Anyhow, I’m glad my father isn’t a clergyman, like Blaize’s. Do you do divinity with him in the study on Sunday afternoon in the holidays? Whack, whack. ‘There, my boy!’ ‘Oh, papa, don’t hit me!’ Whack, whack! ‘Oh papa!’ ” squeaked Sharpe Major.
David, by a dexterous movement, got Sharpe’s head in Chancery, rubbed his nose on his desk, pulled his hair, and hit him over the biceps.
“Any more remarks about papa?” he asked cheerfully. “Come on, out with them.”
Chapter II
The others poured out into the sunshine, but David lingered behind with Bags and Ferrers Major, and began burrowing in his locker to find the box belonging to his two stag-beetles. They were male and female, as the lady’s absence of long horns testified, and it was hoped that even in confinement she might some day be confined. Indeed, there were several bets on, as to which form the babies would take—whether they would be eggs or some sort of caterpillar, or minute but fully developed stag-beetles. The box in question was a small cardboard oblong, of cramped dimensions; but really it was no more than their saloon travelling-carriage, for they lived in David’s washing-basin at night, since it had been ascertained that the sides of it were too steep and slippery to allow their escape, and at other times had the run of his desk in school-hours, and were allowed quantities of healthy exercise when their owner was unoccupied and could look after their wayward steps. But now, since after chapel David would not come back to the class-room, it was necessary to put them in their travelling-carriage, which was pierced with holes, so that such air as there might happen to be in David’s pocket should penetrate to them. A few slips of grass and leaves would be sufficient to sustain them until they were regaled with bits of cake and a strawberry or two from the tea which was to be provided for the first form after chapel.
The lady was lying on her back, as good as gold, waving her legs slowly in the air, having probably fallen down on some climbing expedition about the roof of the locker, but the stag himself (called “The Monarch of the Glen”) could not at once be found. But a little careful rummaging disclosed him sitting morosely in a crevice between a grammar and a geography book.
“I say, I don’t believe the Monarch’s well,” said David.
“Shouldn’t think so, living in your fuggy desk,” said Bags, strolling out of the room.
Suddenly David perceived, as by a special revelation, that he must kick Bags. Bags had thrown an inky dart at him, and though, in the depression of the Bible-lesson, that had been forgotten, it started into prominence again in his mind. Further, Bags had added insult to injury by saying that his desk was fuggy. Certainly he must kick Bags, just once, juicily, and call it all square.
David gingerly took the Monarch by the waist, so that his pincers nipped the empty air, and put him and his spouse into their travelling carriage.
“Come on, Ferrers,” he said.
On their way across to chapel he paused a moment to pick a few leaves from the bright squibs of root-growth on the elm just outside the class-room, and took Ferrer’s arm.
“Don’t let’s go too quick,” he said. “I want to catch Bags up just as we get to chapel-door, and if I was alone he might suspect. Then you’ll see: I’ll give him one kick, just one, but a beauty. Let’s seem to be talking.”
Diabolically diplomatic, David managed his manœuvre well, gradually gaining on his unsuspecting victim, and stalking him with infinite stealth and relish. There was no question of honour in coming behind him thus unaware, for Bags had launched a dart at him without provocation, and had also gone jauntily across to chapel after making that ill-advised remark about David’s fuggy desk. Should Bags resent a good sound kick, which was a pretty just payment of the score, David would be perfectly happy to fight him afterwards if he desired it. It was quite all right.
David, sometimes lounging, sometimes hurrying, and all the time talking in a foolish, interested manner to Ferrers, came up close to the rear of the enemy just two steps outside chapel-door. They were the last of the boys to go in, and David had space to swing his leg. For the moment Bags was too much astonished to be hurt, and David passed him with a slight smile on his hopelessly seraphic face, went up the gangway to his seat in the choir just opposite the organ, knelt down, and covered a gratified face with his hands. He loved doing things neatly, and to kick Bags, just once, quite correctly like that, was as good as cutting a ball just out of reach of point.
The evening service began, psalms and canticles and hymns all to be sung. It was that terrible fifteenth evening of the month, and page after page of psalm must be gone through. Only that morning David and Ferrers had had an impassioned argument as to whether the Old or the New Testament was “the beastliest,” Ferrers maintaining that there was nothing in the New Testament that could compare with the Kings of Israel and Judah, while David (and his argument was strengthened after the last hour) affirmed that nothing b.c. could beat the missionary journeys, not if it tried with both hands. But as the psalm for the fifteenth evening (to a single chant too) went on, he felt that it was difficult to feel honestly that there could be anything beastlier, especially if you had not had tea. He hoped Ferrers would not adduce that as a crushing argument for the supremacy of the Old Testament. On it went, and, as an antidote to its interminableness, David began to think of other and more pleasant things. There was his eleven-cap and his twenty-four runs in the last match to muse upon as a resisting topic to the tedium of the children of Israel, and in especial one gorgeous pull for four he had made. Also he could feel on the side of his leg the slight vibration from the travelling-carriage of the Monarch and his wife, which showed they were moving about, enjoying, it was to be hoped, the fresh elm-leaves he had nipped off for them. It was in his left-hand trousers pocket that these were confined, a place to be felt stealthily and exteriorly, since hands-in-pockets was a forbidden attitude in chapel. Just below the box were the two half-crowns, the yet unchanged splendour of Aunt Eleanor’s gift. Also in anticipation was the thought of the tea that should succeed chapel, and in retrospect the remembrance of the beautiful kick he had given Bags. But the seventy-eighth psalm was a corker for all that, and if Ferrers Major brought it up, he would have to admit it.
The psalm began to show promise of ending, and it was already possible to count the remaining verses. Then suddenly there was something so delightful in it as a topical allusion, that Ferrers could no longer advance it as being beastlier than anything in the New Testament. And David’s contribution to the music swelled out at once more lustily, and he looked and beamed towards Bags as he sang, “He smote his enemies in the hinder part, and put them to a perpetual shame.”
Ferrers caught his eye and understood, but Bags did not, which was a pity. David felt he must have seen the appositeness of that verse, but he did not look up. Poor old Bags! perhaps he was much hurt. David had not meant to hurt him much; he had only wanted to kick him neatly and squarely and peacefully, ready to fight afterwards, if desired.
The senior boys