Mike Read online

  CHAPTER XXX

  MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND

  Two years have elapsed and Mike is home again for the Easter holidays.

  If Mike had been in time for breakfast that morning he might havegathered from the expression on his father's face, as Mr. Jacksonopened the envelope containing his school report and read thecontents, that the document in question was not exactly a paean ofpraise from beginning to end. But he was late, as usual. Mike alwayswas late for breakfast in the holidays.

  When he came down on this particular morning, the meal was nearlyover. Mr. Jackson had disappeared, taking his correspondence with him;Mrs. Jackson had gone into the kitchen, and when Mike appeared thething had resolved itself into a mere vulgar brawl between Phyllis andElla for the jam, while Marjory, who had put her hair up a fortnightbefore, looked on in a detached sort of way, as if these juvenilegambols distressed her.

  "Hullo, Mike," she said, jumping up as he entered; "here you are--I'vebeen keeping everything hot for you."

  "Have you? Thanks awfully. I say--" his eye wandered in mild surpriseround the table. "I'm a bit late."

  Marjory was bustling about, fetching and carrying for Mike, as shealways did. She had adopted him at an early age, and did the thingthoroughly. She was fond of her other brothers, especially when theymade centuries in first-class cricket, but Mike was her favourite. Shewould field out in the deep as a natural thing when Mike was battingat the net in the paddock, though for the others, even for Joe, whohad played in all five Test Matches in the previous summer, she woulddo it only as a favour.

  Phyllis and Ella finished their dispute and went out. Marjory sat onthe table and watched Mike eat.

  "Your report came this morning, Mike," she said.

  The kidneys failed to retain Mike's undivided attention. He looked upinterested. "What did it say?"

  "I didn't see--I only caught sight of the Wrykyn crest on theenvelope. Father didn't say anything."

  Mike seemed concerned. "I say, that looks rather rotten! I wonder ifit was awfully bad. It's the first I've had from Appleby."

  "It can't be any worse than the horrid ones Mr. Blake used to writewhen you were in his form."

  "No, that's a comfort," said Mike philosophically. "Think there's anymore tea in that pot?"

  "I call it a shame," said Marjory; "they ought to be jolly glad tohave you at Wrykyn just for cricket, instead of writing beastlyreports that make father angry and don't do any good to anybody."

  "Last summer he said he'd take me away if I got another one."

  "He didn't mean it really, I _know_ he didn't! He couldn't!You're the best bat Wrykyn's ever had."

  "What ho!" interpolated Mike.

  "You _are_. Everybody says you are. Why, you got your first thevery first term you were there--even Joe didn't do anything nearly sogood as that. Saunders says you're simply bound to play for England inanother year or two."

  "Saunders is a jolly good chap. He bowled me a half-volley on the offthe first ball I had in a school match. By the way, I wonder if he'sout at the net now. Let's go and see."

  Saunders was setting up the net when they arrived. Mike put on hispads and went to the wickets, while Marjory and the dogs retired asusual to the far hedge to retrieve.

  She was kept busy. Saunders was a good sound bowler of the M.C.C.minor match type, and there had been a time when he had worried Mikeconsiderably, but Mike had been in the Wrykyn team for three seasonsnow, and each season he had advanced tremendously in his batting. Hehad filled out in three years. He had always had the style, and now hehad the strength as well. Saunders's bowling on a true wicket seemedsimple to him. It was early in the Easter holidays, but already he wasbeginning to find his form. Saunders, who looked on Mike as his ownspecial invention, was delighted.

  "If you don't be worried by being too anxious now that you're captain,Master Mike," he said, "you'll make a century every match next term."

  "I wish I wasn't; it's a beastly responsibility."

  Henfrey, the Wrykyn cricket captain of the previous season, was notreturning next term, and Mike was to reign in his stead. He liked theprospect, but it certainly carried with it a rather awe-inspiringresponsibility. At night sometimes he would lie awake, appalled by thefear of losing his form, or making a hash of things by choosing thewrong men to play for the school and leaving the right men out. It isno light thing to captain a public school at cricket.

  As he was walking towards the house, Phyllis met him. "Oh, I've beenhunting for you, Mike; father wants you."

  "What for?"

  "I don't know."

  "Where?"

  "He's in the study. He seems--" added Phyllis, throwing in theinformation by way of a make-weight, "in a beastly wax."

  Mike's jaw fell slightly. "I hope the dickens it's nothing to do withthat bally report," was his muttered exclamation.

  Mike's dealings with his father were as a rule of a most pleasantnature. Mr. Jackson was an understanding sort of man, who treated hissons as companions. From time to time, however, breezes were apt toruffle the placid sea of good-fellowship. Mike's end-of-term reportwas an unfailing wind-raiser; indeed, on the arrival of Mr. Blake'ssarcastic _resume_ of Mike's short-comings at the end of theprevious term, there had been something not unlike a typhoon. It wason this occasion that Mr. Jackson had solemnly declared his intentionof removing Mike from Wrykyn unless the critics became moreflattering; and Mr. Jackson was a man of his word.

  It was with a certain amount of apprehension, therefore, that Jacksonentered the study.

  "Come in, Mike," said his father, kicking the waste-paper basket; "Iwant to speak to you."

  Mike, skilled in omens, scented a row in the offing. Only in momentsof emotion was Mr. Jackson in the habit of booting the basket.

  There followed an awkward silence, which Mike broke by remarking thathe had carted a half-volley from Saunders over the on-side hedge thatmorning.

  "It was just a bit short and off the leg stump, so I stepped out--mayI bag the paper-knife for a jiffy? I'll just show----"

  "Never mind about cricket now," said Mr. Jackson; "I want you tolisten to this report."

  "Oh, is that my report, father?" said Mike, with a sort of sicklyinterest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.

  "It is," replied Mr. Jackson in measured tones, "your report; what ismore, it is without exception the worst report you have ever had."

  "Oh, I say!" groaned the record-breaker.

  "'His conduct,'" quoted Mr. Jackson, "'has been unsatisfactory in theextreme, both in and out of school.'"

  "It wasn't anything really. I only happened----"

  Remembering suddenly that what he had happened to do was to drop acannon-ball (the school weight) on the form-room floor, not once, buton several occasions, he paused.

  "'French bad; conduct disgraceful----'"

  "Everybody rags in French."

  "'Mathematics bad. Inattentive and idle.'"

  "Nobody does much work in Math."

  "'Latin poor. Greek, very poor.'"

  "We were doing Thucydides, Book Two, last term--all speeches anddoubtful readings, and cruxes and things--beastly hard! Everybody saysso."

  "Here are Mr. Appleby's remarks: 'The boy has genuine ability, whichhe declines to use in the smallest degree.'"

  Mike moaned a moan of righteous indignation.

  "'An abnormal proficiency at games has apparently destroyed all desirein him to realise the more serious issues of life.' There is more tothe same effect."

  Mr. Appleby was a master with very definite ideas as to whatconstituted a public-school master's duties. As a man he wasdistinctly pro-Mike. He understood cricket, and some of Mike's shotson the off gave him thrills of pure aesthetic joy; but as a master healways made it his habit to regard the manners and customs of the boysin his form with an unbiased eye, and to an unbiased eye Mike in aform-room was about as near the extreme edge as a boy could be, andMr. Appleby said as much in a clear firm hand.

  "You
remember what I said to you about your report at Christmas,Mike?" said Mr. Jackson, folding the lethal document and replacing itin its envelope.

  Mike said nothing; there was a sinking feeling in his interior.

  "I shall abide by what I said."

  Mike's heart thumped.

  "You will not go back to Wrykyn next term."

  Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering;somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely attheir toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at thatmoment the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of theearth.

  The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made noattempt to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless,his father, when he made up his mind, having all the unbendingtenacity of the normally easy-going man.

  Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reasonhe said very little now.

  "I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.

  Sedleigh! Mike sat up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name--one ofthose schools with about a hundred fellows which you never hear ofexcept when they send up their gymnasium pair to Aldershot, or theirEight to Bisley. Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, pureand simple. What had Sedleigh ever done? What were they ever likely todo? Whom did they play? What Old Sedleighan had ever done anything atcricket? Perhaps they didn't even _play_ cricket!

  "But it's an awful hole," he said blankly.

  Mr. Jackson could read Mike's mind like a book. Mike's point of viewwas plain to him. He did not approve of it, but he knew that in Mike'splace and at Mike's age he would have felt the same. He spoke drily tohide his sympathy.

  "It is not a large school," he said, "and I don't suppose it couldplay Wrykyn at cricket, but it has one merit--boys work there. YoungBarlitt won a Balliol scholarship from Sedleigh last year." Barlittwas the vicar's son, a silent, spectacled youth who did not entervery largely into Mike's world. They had met occasionally attennis-parties, but not much conversation had ensued. Barlitt'smind was massive, but his topics of conversation were not Mike's.

  "Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh," added Mr. Jackson.

  Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what hewould have liked to have said.