Tommy Wideawake Part 21

I think we were both glad to see each other, and I found Tommy a little longer, perhaps a little leaner, but as brown and ruddy as ever.

"I say, it is ripping to get back here again, an' I've got into the third eleven, an' that bat you sent me is an absolute clinker, an' how's the poet, an' did you have a good time in Italy, an', I say, you are shoving on weight, you know, an' there's old Berrill, an' I say, Berrill, that's a ripping young jackdaw you sent, an' he's an' awful thief--that is, he was, you know, but young Jones's dog eat him, or most of him, an' I punched young Jones's head for letting 'em be together, an' I say--how ripping the downs are looking, aren't they?"

Tommy's spirits were infectious, and on the way home it would be hard to say which of us talked the most nonsense.

Our journey through the village was slow, for Tommy's friends were numerous, and spread out over the whole social scale, from the hand-to-mouth daysman to the unctuous chemist and stationer. They included the vicar, leaning over his garden gate, in his shirt-sleeves, surrounded by implements of horticulture, and also, I regret to say, the pot-boy of the Flaming Lion--a graceless young scamp, with poacher written in every lineament of his being.

I was not unprepared for his royal progress, since, during the summer, I had been frequently accosted by his friends, of varying rank and respectability, enquiring of "Master Thomas, sir."

"That young 'awk, sir, as I sent him last week?"

"Made many runs this year, sir, d'ye know?"

"Master Thomas in pretty good 'ealth, sir. Bad livin' in they big schools, sir, ben't it?"

And so on.

Far down the road I saw a horseman, but Tommy could not, by any means, be hurried, and a meeting I did not wish became inevitable.

As young Morris rode up he looked at me a little insolently--maybe it was only my fancy, for prejudice is a poor interpreter of expression--and nodded good day.

I saw that Tommy looked a little uncomfortable and his flow of chatter ceased suddenly.

Morris bent from the saddle and called him, and as I turned to the shop window I could hear them greeting one another.

I did not hear their further conversation, and it was only brief, but the Tommy who walked home with me thenceforward was not the same who had met me so buoyantly at the station.

Ah, these clouds, that are no greater than a man's hand and by reason of their very slenderness are so difficult to dispel!

The early days of August sped away happily enough, and their adventures were merely those of field, and stream, and valley, engrossing enough of the time and fraught no doubt with lessons of experience, but too trivial, I suppose, for record.

And yet I would rather write of them than of the day--the 8th of August--when the Borcombe eleven beat Camslove by many runs.

And yet again, I am not sure, for a peril realised early, even through a fall, may be the presage of ultimate victory.

I had been in town all day myself, and therefore had not been amongst the enthusiastic little crowd gathered in the field behind the church to watch this annual encounter, and a typical English country crowd it was, brimful of sport--see the eager movements of those gnarled hands and the light in the clear open-air eyes and wrinkled faces.

Camslove, too, had more than justified the prediction of their adherents and had made a hundred and fifty runs, a very creditable score.

"An' if they can stand Berrill's fast 'uns they bees good 'uns,"

chuckled they of Camslove, as they settled down to watch the Borcombe innings.

Tommy was hanging about the little tin-roofed pavilion, divided between a natural patriotism and a desire to see his hero perform wonders, for Squire Morris's son had consented to represent Borcombe.

Young Morris had never played for his village before, but his reputation as a cricketer was considerable, and the country-side awaited his display with some curiosity.

Nor were they disappointed, for in every way he played admirable cricket, and even Berrill's fast ones merely appeared to offer him opportunities of making boundary hits. His fellow cricketers spent more or less brief periods in his company, and disconsolately sought the shade of the pavilion and the trees, but Morris flogged away so mercilessly that the Camslove score was easily surpa.s.sed, with three wickets yet to fall, and in the end Borcombe obtained a very solid victory.

Young Morris was not held in high esteem in the country-side, and there were many who cordially disliked him--it was even whispered that one or two had sworn, deeply, a condign revenge for certain deeds of his--but he had played the innings of a master, and, as such, he received great applause on his return to the pavilion.

Tommy was in the highest spirits, and, full of a reflected glory, strode manfully, on his hero's arm, down the village street.

In the bar-room of the Flaming Lion many healths were drunk to the victors, to the defeated, to Berrill's fast 'uns, to the young squire's long success, to Tommy Wideawake.

Tommy, flushed and exultant, stood among the little group, with glowing cheeks.

Presently a grimy hand pulled his sleeve. It was the pot-boy.

"Don't 'ee 'ave no more, sir--not now," he whispered. But Tommy looked at him hotly.

"Can't a gentleman drink when he likes--d.a.m.n you?" he asked.

The pot-boy slunk away, and a loud laugh rang round the little audience.

"Good on you, Tommy," cried Morris.

"Gentlemen, the girls--bless 'em." He filled their gla.s.ses, at his expense, and coupled a nameless wish with his toast.

Tommy, unconscious of its meaning, drank with the others.

Then he walked unsteadily to the door. There was a strange buzzing in his head, and a dawning feeling of nausea in him, which he strove to fight down.

And as he stood at the porch, flushed and bright-eyed, Madge Chantrey and the pale boy pa.s.sed along the road. They were going to meet Miss Gerald, but Tommy staggered out and faced them.

"Hullo, Madge, old girl," he said, but she drew back, staring at him, with wide eyes.

The pale boy laughed.

"Why, he's drunk--dead drunk," he said.

Tommy lurched forward and struck him in the face, and in a moment the pale boy had sent him rolling heavily in the road. I picked him up, for I was pa.s.sing on my way home from the station, and noticed the flush on his cheeks, and saw that they were streaked with blood and dust.

They tell me that I, too, lost my temper, and even now I cannot remember all I said to Morris and his satellites and the little crowd in the Flaming Lion. I remember taking Tommy home, and helping my man to undress and wash him and put him to bed, and I shall never forget the evening that I spent downstairs in my study, staring dumbly over the misty valley to the far downs, and seeing only two grave grey eyes looking rebukingly into mine.

Late in the evening the vicar joined me, and we sat silently together in the little study.

My man lit the lamp, and brought us our coffee, and came again to fetch it away, untasted.

Perhaps you smile as you read this.

"You ridiculous old men," I can hear you say. "To magnify so trivial an incident into a veritable calamity."

And, again, I can only plead that, in our quiet life, maybe, we attached undue importance to such a slight occurrence.

Yet, nevertheless, to us it was very real, almost overwhelmingly real, and the tragedy of it lay, nearly two years back, in the panelled study of Camslove Grange.

Presently the vicar looked at me, and his face, in the red lamplight, seemed almost haggard.