“I’ll try,” said Kennedy, and walked back to begin his over.
Fenn reached his fifty off the third ball. Seventy went up on the board. Ten more and Kay’s would have the cup. The fourth ball was too good to hit. Fenn let it pass. The fifth he drove to the on. It was a big hit, but there was a fieldsman in the neighbourhood. Still, it was an easy two. But to Kennedy’s surprise Fenn sent his partner back after they had run a single. Even the umpire was surprised. Fenn’s policy was so obvious that it was strange to see him thus deliberately allow his partner to take a ball.
“That’s not over, you know, Fenn,” said the umpire—Lang, of the School House, a member of the first eleven.
Fenn looked annoyed. He had miscounted the balls, and now his partner, who had no pretensions to be considered a bat, would have to face Kennedy.
That mistake lost Kay’s the match.
Impossible as he had found it to defeat Fenn, Kennedy had never lost his head or his length. He was bowling fully as well as he had done at the beginning of the innings.
The last ball of the over beat the batsman all the way. He scooped blindly forward, missed it by a foot, and the next moment the off stump lay flat. Blackburn’s had won by seven runs.
IV
Harmony and Discord
What might be described as a mixed reception awaited the players as they left the field. The pavilion and the parts about the pavilion rails were always packed on the last day of a final house-match, and even in normal circumstances there was apt to be a little sparring between the juniors of the two houses which had been playing for the cup. In the present case, therefore, it was not surprising that Kay’s fags took the defeat badly. The thought that Fenn’s presence at the beginning of the innings, instead of at the end, would have made all the difference between a loss and a victory, maddened them. The crowd that seethed in front of the pavilion was a turbulent one.
For a time the operation of chairing Fenn up the steps occupied the active minds of the Kayites. When he had disappeared into the first eleven room, they turned their attention in other directions. Caustic and uncomplimentary remarks began to fly to and fro between the representatives of Kay’s and Blackburn’s. It is not known who actually administered the first blow. But, when Fenn came out of the pavilion with Kennedy and Silver, he found a stirring battle in progress. The members of the other houses who had come to look on at the match stood in knots, and gazed with approval at the efforts of Kay’s and Blackburn’s juniors to wipe each other off the face of the earth. The air was full of shrill battle-cries, varied now and then by a smack or a thud, as some young but strenuous fist found a billet. The fortune of war seemed to be distributed equally so far, and the combatants were just warming to their work.
“Look here,” said Kennedy, “we ought to stop this.”
“What’s the good,” said Fenn, without interest. “It pleases them, and doesn’t hurt anybody else.”
“All the same,” observed Jimmy Silver, moving towards the nearest group of combatants, “free fights aren’t quite the thing, somehow. For, children, you should never let your angry passions rise; your little hands were never made to tear each other’s eyes. Dr. Watts’ Advice to Young Pugilists. Drop it, you little beasts.”
He separated two heated youths who were just beginning a fourth round. The rest of the warriors, seeing Silver and the others, called a truce, and Silver, having read a sort of Riot Act, moved on. The juniors of the beaten house, deciding that it would be better not to resume hostilities, consoled themselves by giving three groans for Mr. Kay.
“What happened after I left you last night, Fenn?” asked Kennedy.
“Oh, I had one of my usual rows with Kay, only rather worse than usual. I said one or two things he didn’t like, and today the old man sent for me and told me to come to his room from two till four. Kay had run me in for being ‘grossly rude.’ Listen to those kids. What a row they’re making!”
“It’s a beastly shame,” said Kennedy despondently.
At the school shop Morrell, of Mulholland’s, met them. He had been spending the afternoon with a rug and a novel on the hills at the back of the school, and he wanted to know how the final house-match had gone. Blackburn’s had beaten Mulholland’s in one of the early rounds. Kennedy explained what had happened.
“We should have lost if Fenn had turned up earlier,” he said. “He had a row with Kay, and Kay gave him a sort of extra between two and four.”
Fenn, busily occupied with an ice, added no comment of his own to this plain tale.
“Rough luck,” said Morrell. “What’s all that row out in the field?”
“That’s Kay’s kids giving three groans for Kay,” explained Silver. “At least, they started with the idea of giving three groans. They’ve got up to about three hundred by this time. It seems to have fascinated them. They won’t leave off. There’s no school rule against groaning in the grounds, and they mean to groan till the end of the term. Personally, I like the sound. But then, I’m fond of music.”
Morrell’s face beamed with sudden pleasure. “I knew there was something I wanted to tell you,” he said, “only I couldn’t remember what. Your saying you’re fond of music reminds me. Mulholland’s crocked himself, and won’t be able to turn out for the concert.”
“What!” cried Kennedy. “How did it happen? What’s he done?”
Mr. Mulholland was the master who looked after the music
