The Gold Bat Read online

  IV

  THE LEAGUE'S WARNING

  The team to play in any match was always put upon the notice-board atthe foot of the stairs in the senior block a day before the date of thefixture. Both first and second fifteens had matches on the Thursday ofthis week. The second were playing a team brought down by an oldWrykinian. The first had a scratch game.

  When Barry, accompanied by M'Todd, who shared his study at Seymour'sand rarely left him for two minutes on end, passed by the notice-boardat the quarter to eleven interval, it was to the second fifteen listthat he turned his attention. Now that Bryce had left, he thought hemight have a chance of getting into the second. His only real rival, heconsidered, was Crawford, of the School House, who was the other wingthree-quarter of the third fifteen. The first name he saw on the listwas Crawford's. It seemed to be written twice as large as any of theothers, and his own was nowhere to be seen. The fact that he had halfexpected the calamity made things no better. He had set his heart onplaying for the second this term.

  Then suddenly he noticed a remarkable phenomenon. The other wingthree-quarter was Rand-Brown. If Rand-Brown was playing for the second,who was playing for the first?

  He looked at the list.

  "_Come_ on," he said hastily to M'Todd. He wanted to get awaysomewhere where his agitated condition would not be noticed. He feltquite faint at the shock of seeing his name on the list of the firstfifteen. There it was, however, as large as life. "M. Barry." Separatedfrom the rest by a thin red line, but still there. In his mostoptimistic moments he had never dreamed of this. M'Todd was readingslowly through the list of the second. He did everything slowly, excepteating.

  "Come on," said Barry again.

  M'Todd had, after much deliberation, arrived at a profound truth. Heturned to Barry, and imparted his discovery to him in the weightymanner of one who realises the importance of his words.

  "Look here," he said, "your name's not down here."

  "I know. _Come_ on."

  "But that means you're not playing for the second."

  "Of course it does. Well, if you aren't coming, I'm off."

  "But, look here----"

  Barry disappeared through the door. After a moment's pause, M'Toddfollowed him. He came up with him on the senior gravel.

  "What's up?" he inquired.

  "Nothing," said Barry.

  "Are you sick about not playing for the second?"

  "No."

  "You are, really. Come and have a bun."

  In the philosophy of M'Todd it was indeed a deep-rooted sorrow thatcould not be cured by the internal application of a new, hot bun. Ithad never failed in his own case.

  "Bun!" Barry was quite shocked at the suggestion. "I can't afford toget myself out of condition with beastly buns."

  "But if you aren't playing----"

  "You ass. I'm playing for the first. Now, do you see?"

  M'Todd gaped. His mind never worked very rapidly. "What aboutRand-Brown, then?" he said.

  "Rand-Brown's been chucked out. Can't you understand? You _are_ anidiot. Rand-Brown's playing for the second, and I'm playing for thefirst."

  "But you're----"

  He stopped. He had been going to point out that Barry's tender years--hewas only sixteen--and smallness would make it impossible for him to playwith success for the first fifteen. He refrained owing to a convictionthat the remark would not be wholly judicious. Barry was touchy on thesubject of his size, and M'Todd had suffered before now for commentingon it in a disparaging spirit.

  "I tell you what we'll do after school," said Barry, "we'll have somerunning and passing. It'll do you a lot of good, and I want to practisetaking passes at full speed. You can trot along at your ordinary pace,and I'll sprint up from behind."

  M'Todd saw no objection to that. Trotting along at his ordinarypace--five miles an hour--would just suit him.

  "Then after that," continued Barry, with a look of enthusiasm, "I wantto practise passing back to my centre. Paget used to do it awfully welllast term, and I know Trevor expects his wing to. So I'll buck along,and you race up to take my pass. See?"

  This was not in M'Todd's line at all. He proposed a slight alterationin the scheme.

  "Hadn't you better get somebody else--?" he began.

  "Don't be a slack beast," said Barry. "You want exercise awfullybadly."

  And, as M'Todd always did exactly as Barry wished, he gave in, andspent from four-thirty to five that afternoon in the prescribed manner.A suggestion on his part at five sharp that it wouldn't be a bad ideato go and have some tea was not favourably received by the enthusiasticthree-quarter, who proposed to devote what time remained before lock-upto practising drop-kicking. It was a painful alternative that facedM'Todd. His allegiance to Barry demanded that he should consent to thescheme. On the other hand, his allegiance to afternoon tea--equallystrong--called him back to the house, where there was cake, and alsomuffins. In the end the question was solved by the appearance ofDrummond, of Seymour's, garbed in football things, and also anxious topractise drop-kicking. So M'Todd was dismissed to his tea withopprobrious epithets, and Barry and Drummond settled down to a littleserious and scientific work.

  Making allowances for the inevitable attack of nerves that attends afirst appearance in higher football circles than one is accustomed to,Barry did well against the scratch team--certainly far better thanRand-Brown had done. His smallness was, of course, against him, and, onthe only occasion on which he really got away, Paget overtook him andbrought him down. But then Paget was exceptionally fast. In the twomost important branches of the game, the taking of passes and tackling,Barry did well. As far as pluck went he had enough for two, and whenthe whistle blew for no-side he had not let Paget through once, andTrevor felt that his inclusion in the team had been justified. Therewas another scratch game on the Saturday. Barry played in it, and didmuch better. Paget had gone away by an early train, and the man he hadto mark now was one of the masters, who had been good in his time, butwas getting a trifle old for football. Barry scored twice, and on oneoccasion, by passing back to Trevor after the manner of Paget, enabledthe captain to run in. And Trevor, like the captain in _BillyTaylor_, "werry much approved of what he'd done." Barry began to beregarded in the school as a regular member of the fifteen. The first ofthe fixture-card matches, versus the Town, was due on the followingSaturday, and it was generally expected that he would play. M'Todd'sdevotion increased every day. He even went to the length of taking longruns with him. And if there was one thing in the world that M'Toddloathed, it was a long run.

  On the Thursday before the match against the Town, Clowes camechuckling to Trevor's study after preparation, and asked him if he hadheard the latest.

  "Have you ever heard of the League?" he said.

  Trevor pondered.

  "I don't think so," he replied.

  "How long have you been at the school?"

  "Let's see. It'll be five years at the end of the summer term."

  "Ah, then you wouldn't remember. I've been here a couple of termslonger than you, and the row about the League was in my first term."

  "What was the row?"

  "Oh, only some chaps formed a sort of secret society in the place. Kindof Vehmgericht, you know. If they got their knife into any one, heusually got beans, and could never find out where they came from. Atfirst, as a matter of fact, the thing was quite a philanthropicalconcern. There used to be a good deal of bullying in the place then--atleast, in some of the houses--and, as the prefects couldn't or wouldn'tstop it, some fellows started this League."

  "Did it work?"

  "Work! By Jove, I should think it did. Chaps who previously couldn'tget through the day without making some wretched kid's life not worthliving used to go about as nervous as cats, looking over theirshoulders every other second. There was one man in particular, a chapcalled Leigh. He was hauled out of bed one night, blindfolded, andducked in a cold bath. He was in the School House."

  "Why did the League bust up?"

  "Well
, partly because the fellows left, but chiefly because they didn'tstick to the philanthropist idea. If anybody did anything they didn'tlike, they used to go for him. At last they put their foot into itbadly. A chap called Robinson--in this house by the way--offended themin some way, and one morning he was found tied up in the bath, up tohis neck in cold water. Apparently he'd been there about an hour. Hegot pneumonia, and almost died, and then the authorities began to getgoing. Robinson thought he had recognised the voice of one of thechaps--I forget his name. The chap was had up by the Old Man, and gavethe show away entirely. About a dozen fellows were sacked, clean offthe reel. Since then the thing has been dropped."

  "But what about it? What were you going to say when you came in?"

  "Why, it's been revived!"

  "Rot!"

  "It's a fact. Do you know Mill, a prefect, in Seymour's?"

  "Only by sight."

  "I met him just now. He's in a raving condition. His study's beenwrecked. You never saw such a sight. Everything upside down or smashed.He has been showing me the ruins."

  "I believe Mill is awfully barred in Seymour's," said Trevor. "Anybodymight have ragged his study."

  "That's just what I thought. He's just the sort of man the League usedto go for."

  "That doesn't prove that it's been revived, all the same," objectedTrevor.

  "No, friend; but this does. Mill found it tied to a chair."

  It was a small card. It looked like an ordinary visiting card. On it,in neat print, were the words, "_With the compliments of theLeague_".

  "That's exactly the same sort of card as they used to use," saidClowes. "I've seen some of them. What do you think of that?"

  "I think whoever has started the thing is a pretty average-sized idiot.He's bound to get caught some time or other, and then out he goes. TheOld Man wouldn't think twice about sacking a chap of that sort."

  "A chap of that sort," said Clowes, "will take jolly good care he isn'tcaught. But it's rather sport, isn't it?"

  And he went off to his study.

  Next day there was further evidence that the League was an actual goingconcern. When Trevor came down to breakfast, he found a letter by hisplate. It was printed, as the card had been. It was signed "ThePresident of the League." And the purport of it was that the League didnot wish Barry to continue to play for the first fifteen.